The Daughter of Athena
by ShootWithIntentToKill
Summary: BOOK 1: Ancient Greece AU. When Annabeth finds every other one of Athena's daughters killed, she is faced with a race to Mount Olympus; assassins at her heels. But when she meets certain green-eyed son of Poseidon and his team of monster hunters, everything becomes so much more complicated, and they uncover a plot aimed to reach the gods themselves. Rated T because I'm paranoid.
1. The Assasin of Athens

**A/N: Hi, this is my first story so I would love to know what you think. This is an AU based in Ancient Greece. I hope you enjoy.**

 **Annabeth POV**

I sat on a wall, my legs dangling down, looking out towards the ocean. My friend Piper was sitting next to me, wearing her normal, scruffy white tunic. Her hair looked as it always did, intentionally choppy and uneven, which thin strands braided down the sides. You would never be able to tell she was a daughter of Aphrodite, in fact I have seen many people laugh when she mentions it. They regret that pretty quickly. She has an ability to get people to do what she tells them, with something called charmspeak, and she can get people to do some pretty crazy stuff. Piper was currently looking at her dagger, which can show visions of the future. It may sound awesome, however it will never show you the entire story, which can get quite annoying. Every time she finds out what actually happens she gets annoyed and claims she is going to melt her dagger down. She never does though, I think the daughter of Aphrodite secretly likes the suspense.

'Hey, check it out,' Piper showed me the reflection on her dagger, a black haired boy, with sea-green eyes and a mischievous smile

'My dad has another play tonight, so he's going to be out all night,' Piper told me, as she put her dagger back into her belt.

Her dad is an actor, does plays all over Greece, which is how he caught the attention of Aphrodite. She will travel all over the country with him, so I am always glad when she stops by at Athens.

'His opening night,' I noted 'Are you going to go?'

Piper shook her head. 'He was doing it last week in Thebes.' She told me. 'I saw it there and I have no intention of seeing it again.'

'That bad?'

'No, but I would much rather be spending the time with my friend. We travel so much I hardly ever see you.'

I laughed. 'Someone might think that we spend enough on Iris messages to not have to be like that.'

'It's different, being face to face.'

I knew what Piper meant; spending hours talking to each other over Iris message was nothing compared to five minutes next to each other. Although I had tried to show my indifference, I was delighted that Piper would rather spend her evening with me than watching her dad perform. Now we would have the entire night to ourselves... I cursed, loudly, making a lot of passers by look up at me and tut. I didn't care, however, because I had just realised something.

'What is it Annabeth?' Piper asked me.

'My mother... at temple... supposed to meet her... fifteen minutes ago...' I gasped, already setting off at a run towards the Parthenon, the temple of my mother, Athena.

Piper ran next to me, occasionally shouting 'move!' to people, which made them instantly jump out of our path, thanks to her charmspeak.

I can't believe I forgot about my mother arriving to see her children today. I had got so wound up in Pipers arrival it had completely gone from my memory, which, I will assure you, does not normally happen. My mother always likes things to run exactly to plan, and is not happy when people are late. If you haven't already guessed, my mother is wAthena, the goddess of crafts and wisdom.

We spent fifteen minutes running to the Parthenon, and I knew my mother would be furious when she saw me, since I was now half an hour late. Running up the steps I was surprised to see Athenian guards patrolling every inch of the temple. I slowed down to a walk as I recognised one of the guards: Mark, son of Ares.

'Mark' I said, hurrying up to him, 'what's going on?'

'Annabeth! Thank the gods! After what happened, we feared the worst, it is so good to know that you are safe.' He said all of that without taking a breath, and looked relieved, but also nervous at the same time.

'What. Exactly. Is. Going. On?' I asked, saying each word slowly, and through clenched teeth.

'Look, I don't know, on one knows exactly. You better follow me though.'

I was confused, but followed him into the temple. The first thing I saw was Athena and my half-brothers, the sons of Athena, standing in a close circle, looking at something on the ground. They all looked shocked, Athena included. Standing around them were guards, even more than were outside the temple. Athena glanced up when we walked in, and relief washed across her face. That surprised me, what could have happened that made Athena glad I was late? I pushed between two of my brothers to work out what they were looking at, and froze when I saw. All my sisters, the seven other daughters of Athena, were lying side by side, dead.

~~~~~~~~~ LINE BREAK OF AWESOMENESS~~~~~~~~~

'What do we do with her?' Athena was pacing back and forth, worried. Everyone agreed that since all the other daughters of Athena were dead, that meant the assassin, who wasn't found after he killed all my sisters, would now come after me if he realised his mistake. I was sitting in one of the windowless rooms in the temple, with three of my brothers - Malcom, Albert and Stephan, as well as Piper. The small candle we had illuminated my mothers furious face. 'Who would dare... my own daughters... my temple.'

I had never seen my mother so angry, but I knew there was no way that her anger would make her do something rash or stupid, she wasn't like that.

'We need to get Annabeth to somewhere safe, somewhere that an assassin couldn't possibly get her,' Athena said, looking worriedly at me. Despite the danger, I was almost happy. Athena had never paid me so much attention as she was now.

'Where?' Piper asked, her multi-coloured eyes dancing in the candle light. 'People thought the temple was a safe place, where is safer than a temple, in the presence of a Goddess?'

'Mount Olympus.' Malcom said. Everyone looked at him so he continued. 'Where else would be nearly as safe - it's probably the safest place in Greece for people trying to keep away from assassins, since it's so well defended.'

Athena nodded. 'I dislike it, but Malcom is correct. Olympus is the only place that will be safe for you. The problem is getting you there without anyone knowing. Even Olympus will not be completely safe if the wrong people find out where you are.'

She paused for a moment to create a plan in her head. 'This is what will happen. You will leave Athens at nightfall today as there is no time to waste. Nobody outside this room is to even know you are leaving, let alone where you are going. All five of you will head to Mount Olympus - any more could arouse suspicion, however any less will be too dangerous, in case you are attacked. Before you leave I will use the mist to create four groups, identical to yours, who will be used to lead anyone who could be watching any of the gates to follow them. These mist groups will disappear as soon as they are captured or "killed" or after 48 hours. You will leave after the mist group leaving from the North Gate has left, from the same gate. I will make sure trustworthy people are on guard there. Take horses to speed you on your way, I believe it will take you a week to reach Mount Olympus from here.'

Athena's plan was, of course, faultless, however there was one thing still on my mind. 'Why would people be targeting daughters of Athena?' I asked.

'I do not know,' Athena replied curtly, before leaving the room. I knew she hated not knowing things, even more than I did.

'Well,' said Albert, standing up. 'If we are going to be leaving tonight we better start getting ready. I'll sort out five horses; Malcom, get our clothes and stuff together, you know where they are; Stephan, get food and that kind of thing; Piper, get clothes and things for you and Annabeth...' Albert hesitated when he looked at me. 'You better stay out of sight, the less people who see you, the better. Meet back here as soon as everything is ready.'

I nodded and sat back down as everyone else filed out. I got Albert's reasoning, but I hated feeling useless, like someone else had to look after me. I wanted to be out there, doing something, but instead I was stuck in a small, windowless room while everyone else was busy around me, with nothing to do but mourn my dead sisters.

Piper came back first, which I was glad about. 'I told my dad I was going to be gone for a few weeks, and not to worry,' she told me when she came into the room.

I suddenly realised that in all the drama I had completely forgotten that my father would be worrying about me as well. He would have been told about the daughters of Athena being killed in the temple, and probably assumed I was dead, and I was just about to disappear for weeks, maybe even months. I didn't have the best relationship with my father, but I still didn't want him to think I was dead. Piper must have sensed my mood, because she told me 'It's probably best for your father to not know where you are, at least for now. When people work out you are still alive, they will come looking for your father. The less he knows, the better.'

'I know, and it's not like I see him much anyway. I just wish-' I didn't finish my thought.

'Anyway,' said Piper brightly, 'you should probably get changed.' She showed me the clothes she had picked out for me to travel in.

Piper's choice of clothes is always practical above beautiful, and today she didn't disappoint. I swapped my white dress for simple, black leggings and a silver coloured tunic, finished with a grey cloak with a hood I could pull low over my face to allow me to blend in with the public in the streets or a dark night. I slid my dagger - my personal choice of weapon - into my belt, where it could be concealed by my cloak. Piper's outfit was similar to mine, although she kept her scruffy white tunic. Her knife was tucked in one side of her belt, while she kept a jagged bronze sword in the other, which was her preferred weapon. I tied my curly blonde hair into a low ponytail. Although I had blonde hair rather than the darker colour of most children of Athena, I shared the stormy grey of most of my siblings. I liked them because they were fierce and I could give people good 'death looks' if they tried to mess with me. I practiced one on Piper when she told me 'You know, maybe people will be too busy celebrating your death to notice you aren't actually dead.' She poked her tongue out at my death stare.


	2. Leaving Athens

Malcom and Stephan came back together, and while Malcom distributed the food among the five packs, Stephan put a loaf of bread, cheese and olives on the low table in the centre of the room. 'Not exactly a hot meal,' he said 'but that's our dinner so eat up.'

I nibbled on a few olives, but I wasn't hungry. The memory of my sisters, lying there, motionless, kept playing in my mind. They all had two arrows in them, one through their heart and another one through their head. Two bullseyes in each of them... 'Something doesn't add up.' I said. My two brothers and Piper looked at me, confused. 'There were two arrows in each of the girls, and yet you said you didn't hear anything until they hit the floor.'

'Yes... what's your point Annabeth?' Stephan asked me.

'No one can draw a bow fast enough to score two bullseyes in the time it takes for one person to fall to the ground let alone fourteen, and I've never seen anyone shoot more than two arrows at a time that can score bullseyes at two separate points.'

'Oh...' said Malcom, realising what I was saying. 'That means that there was at least seven brilliant archers, or fourteen good ones, to be sure they all score bullseyes.'

'But how do fourteen archers disappear while the temple is supposed to be closed off, without a trace?' Piper asked.

'I don't know,' I said, frustrated. 'But an operation this big - they probably did some research to work out how many people they needed to prepare to kill-'

'Which means they know you weren't there.' Stephan finished.

'So now they are looking for you.' Piper added. 'So we have just lost any chance that you aren't being hunted.'

We fell silent, worried about the new developments.

'This changes nothing,' Malcom said, surprising us out of our thoughts. 'We already assumed that Annabeth was being hunted, and we have a good plan, let's stick to it.'

As if on cue, Albert walked in. 'The horses are ready, and we better go, people have been asking about you.' He directed the last part to me, and no one was surprised by the news.

I pulled up my hood to hide my face and we walked out into the fresh air, and out towards the stables.

Albert didn't look surprised when we explained to him what we had worked out. 'I had been having similar thoughts myself' he told us, 'but Malcom is right, this changes nothing, we just have to be more careful.'

We reached the stables where Albert had prepared the horses. 'The fastest one I could get,' he said, showing me to a horse with a blue roan coat. 'Her name is Atalanta. If you are in trouble, don't wait for us, just tell Atalanta to run.' He sighed at my expression. 'Look, these people are after _you_ , not us. If you go they will probably leave us alone and go after you. It will be safer for all of us.' I nodded, I could understand his logic, although, if the time came, would I really be able to leave my friends?

Albert had bought three more horses for him, Stephan and Malcom, although since Piper traveled so much, she had her own, a pure white horse she called Chionompala (or Pala for short). As we left Piper spoke to the stable boy in her best charmspeak. 'You didn't see us and you have no knowledge of us or our horses,' she told him. His eyes glazed over as we trotted out. 'In a few seconds he will have no memory of us,' she explained. I nodded, impressed. Even though I had seen her use her charmspeak before, it never stopped amazing me.

'Wow, Annabeth is actually impressed,' Piper said, 'record the moment.'

'Gods Annie, I didn't know you had it in you' Malcom added, in mock surprise.

''Don't call me Annie,' I grumbled, ignoring their joke.

My brothers and Piper all sniggered. I scowled at them.

We rode northward through Athens while the sun set to the west. We kept an eye out for signs we were being followed, but saw nothing. Despite this, my brothers knuckles were white on the hilt of their swords. Occasionally we saw someone else, but a few words from Piper and they forgot we were there. Not many people were out on a night like this and we reached the gate with no signs of trouble, just as the sun vanished from the horizon. Albert held up his hand to signal 'wait' and we reined the horses in and watched the gate.

We had barely stopped when I heard the sound of hoofbeats to my right and I watched as a fifteen horse strong convey appeared in view. I realised that this must be one of the 'mist groups' that Athena said she was going to make. I recognised all nine of the sons of Athena, as well as four other city guards. All of the men were dressed in full armour, with swords at their side and bows on their backs. I couldn't help smirking at the mist version of Piper, who wore a beautiful long pink dress the real Piper would never dream of touching. Her hair was magically tamed and she wore delicate gold jewellery that so wasn't her. Athena really had gone all out. And then, in the middle, my heart stopped. I was right there. "I" had a hood pulled up but I could still recognise myself, in a long silver cloak over a pure white dress. I was pleased to see that even my mist-altered version of myself carried a dagger in my belt. The guard at the gate opened it for the convoy and it passed through, and I watched as four shadows, people clad in dark clothing slipped through behind them, unnoticed by the guards at the gate. I suddenly realised what a good idea it was so send such a large group through first. The assassins or whoever was supposed to be guarding the gate would all have to follow such a large convoy if they had any chance against them, hopefully allowing us to follow behind, unnoticed.

We gave the mist group ten minutes to move on before we walked up to the gate ourselves. Piper said in her best charmspeak: 'open this gate, let us in, close it and then forget any of this happened.' The guard at the gate, who I noticed was Mark, son of Ares, obliged and soon we were through the gates. Albert and Malcom kept an eye out behind, but reported seeing no movements. As soon as we could we turned off the path into the woodland surrounding Athens, and the city was quickly out of view.

* * *

We were hoping to reach Thebes before dawn, which should have been easy, but we also wanted to stay off roads in case we were spotted and so could often not take the horses above a brisk walk through the dense forests. By midnight I began to feel tired, having not slept since last night, followed by a long day. The first half of our ride, which was all forests, took us over six and a half hours to do. I could tell all my brothers and Piper were as exhausted as I was.

'We have twelve hours of darkness in which to make it to Thebes,' Albert scowled, annoyed. 'That should have been more than enough, but at this rate we are never going to make it.'

I could tell the horses were beginning to tire and I was getting sore from riding for so long. I was about to suggest we stop for a rest when the forests abruptly ended, making way for a great stretch of grassland.

'This is good' Stephan said. 'The end of the woodlands and the start of the grassland mark almost exactly halfway between Athens and Thebes.'

'How is that good news?' I asked. 'We have been travelling for six and a half hours and you are telling me that we are only halfway there?'

'The good news,' Stephan said slowly, like I was an idiot, 'is that it is grassland. We can probably triple the pace we were going through the woods.'

'Oh,' I said, feeling my face flush. I hate it when people treat me like I'm stupid, and although I knew Stephan was teasing me, it reminded me too much of when people weren't. When people told me I couldn't be clever, or a fighter, or look after myself because I was a girl. I was glad it was dark so people couldn't see my expression. 'Come on,' I said, and urged Atalanta into a fast canter. The others followed.

Stephan was right, it was much faster on the grassland. It took us little over two hours to reach the outskirts of the city, which we were grateful for, as we had been riding for well over eight hours straight. We camped part way up one of the mountains that overlooked the city, since even if the guards did let five strangers in to the city, we didn't want to draw any attention to ourselves, and demanding rooms for five armed demigods in the middle of the night was one way to do that. Malcom offered to take first watch, and the rest of us slumped on the hard ground, to exhausted to do anything other than pull a blanket over ourselves, and go straight to sleep.

* * *

 **So, that's chapter 2. It's going to stay on Annabeth's POV until Olympus, I have lots of plans. After that it will probably split, although I will have to see how it goes. How are you liking it so far?**

 **-Salty**


	3. Thalia

I woke to the sounds of birds, singing as they flew overhead. I used to love listening to their bird calls when I woke up in Athens. I couldn't believe that the assassination had only been yesterday; so much had happened since then. I walked over to where Albert, who had taken over from Malcom, was keeping watch.

'Can't sleep?' he asked when he noticed me.

Since I didn't trust myself to speak I shook my head, remembering again and again my sisters, with arrows through their heads and hearts.

'If you aren't going to sleep then would you take over watch so I can?'

'Sure.' I was surprised at how even my voice sounded, I had worried it would crack when I spoke. I always tried to keep my emotions hidden when I was with people; I always valued being able to continue with plans, whatever happened. Sometimes though I just couldn't help it.

Albert, always the practical one, gave me a grateful smile and rolled to where the others were lying, falling asleep instantly. I always envied how he could just sleep like that, whatever the situation. I sat down, my back resting against a lone tree, looking down at both the city and the great plains of grassland.

I was supposed to wake Stephan after an hour, but I let him sleep, instead taking his watch as well. I had been watching for about an hour and a half when I thought I saw movement behind a rock, maybe fifty meters away. I didn't want to wake the others just because I thought I saw something, but I didn't want to leave it either. I drew my dagger and went to investigate. I know, call me an idiot, but I was bored and I wanted a straight up fight more than this sneaking around anyway, and I knew that if I said I thought I saw something to my brothers we would instantly move again, and I really didn't feel like doing another eight hours of riding today. I clutched my dagger and walked slowly toward the rock I thought I saw movement behind, keeping my eyes peeled for anymore signs of movement. I rounded the rock to find... nothing. It was probably just a bird or something I told myself, going back to the tree I had been sitting against. I was going to sit back down when the sound of a bow being fired made me jerk my head up. I yelped as I saw an arrow was imbedded in the trunk of the tree, half an inch from my face. I dropped into a roll, looking up to see my attacker. I let out a laugh when I saw who it was: a girl holding a long, silvery bow, making no attempt to draw another arrow, possibly because she was too busy laughing.

'Gods,' my friend Thalia laughed, 'you should have seen your face.'

Before you start wondering why I wasn't worried about the fact someone with a bow just tried to kill me, I should probably explain. We have a running joke when we meet of sneaking up on each other and attacking, and we hadn't killed each other yet. I wouldn't let anyone else act like that around me, but Thalia is like a sister to me, and anyway, she does it whether I want to or not, so I might as well go along with it. I looked across to my brothers and Piper, imaging that they would have been woken by my yelping and our laughter, but they were all dead to the world.

'Well,' I muttered 'it's nice to know I'll have backup if I actually get attacked.'

'Why would you get attacked?' Thalia asked.

'You mean you haven't heard?'

'Heard what?'

I explained to Thalia what had happened yesterday, and how we believed the assassins were now after me. She got a nasty glint in her eye when I told her that we thought it was more than one person, and gave an approving nod when I explained our trick at the gates.

'So how about you,' I asked, 'last I heard you were with the hunters, so what are you doing outside Thebes?'

Thalia narrowed her electric blue eyes at my question. Thalia wears black and silver clothes, and her hair is short, black and spiky. She can give deadly glares that can give you an electric shock since she is a daughter of Zeus, however four years ago she joined the hunters of Artemis as Artemis' lieutenant. They are basically a group of teenage girls who swear off boys, and in return become immortal (unless they die in combat) and run around killing monsters and hunting and that kind of thing.

'There was an attack on the hunters three nights ago. Hundreds of monsters. They surprised us in the night, and although we eventually beat them, we lost thirty hunters. Not even Artemis has seen a monster attack on this scale before, so she decided to ask the other gods on Olympus what was going on. She refused to leave the hunt just after she had lost thirty hunters however, so she sent me. I've come from just west of Sparta, and Thebes is the easiest place to get round the mountains to head for Olympus.'

I knew Thalia well, being my closest friend and all, and I could tell that there was something else bothering her. 'What is it Thals?' I asked her.

Thalia looked up, as though surprised that I had worked out something was going on. I raised my eyebrows and she rolled her eyes. 'It's just something that Artemis told me,' she explained. 'She was apparently considering sending someone else to Olympus, but got a vision that if I went I would find the answer to a question I've been asking myself for a long time.'

'What question?' I asked, surprised.

'She didn't say, but I think it might have something to do with-'

'Thalia!' A girls voice shouted. Piper had woken up.

Because of how much they both travel, Piper and Thalia rarely see each other, but they are still really close friends. Piper ran over and hugged Thalia, making me slightly disappointed that she stopped Thalia saying whatever she was about to, but I cursed myself for feeling like that. Piper and Thalia began a very similar conversation I had had with the hunter, about what had happened and what Thalia was doing here etc. I noticed that Piper's shout had woken the boys up, who nodded in greeting to Thalia and began to sort out a sort of brunch, with bread and dried meats. Having eaten barely anything since lunch yesterday I realised I was starving and quickly went to work on the food. Thalia did the same, although no doubt she had already had breakfast. It never stops amazing me how much food she can devour.

'We should head off as soon as we have packed up,' Malcom said.

I knew that this was probably coming, but I still didn't want to leave Thebes just yet. 'Shouldn't we stick around. Just for a little while. Maybe go into the city?'

Malcom looked confused. 'Why would you want to do that?'

'Err...' I hesitated, trying to come up with a convincing argument.

Piper sighed. 'She wants to see the architecture,' she explained bluntly.

It's true. I love architecture and I go see buildings at every possibility. I can talk for hours about how buildings are designed - Greece has some of the best architects in the world. Did you know some temples have columns leaning in slightly so that from a distance it looks like they straight- sorry I'm getting distracted. Anyway, after Piper explained why I wanted to go to Thebes with none of the eloquence she usually possesses, Malcom shot daggers at me with his eyes and that pretty much ended any chance I had of seeing the city.

We finished packing up in silence and I climbed on to Atalanta, to prepare for another long day of riding. Thalia showed us her horse, a black mare that she, for some reason, called Sock. We set our horses off at a steady canter and Malcom decided that since it was day and there was only plains around us, nothing to hide us from view, it would look less suspicious if we went on the main road heading North of Thebes. I could see the logic, but it still felt slightly strange passing merchants and travellers without more than a friendly glance after I had spent the last twenty-four hours trying to stay hidden from view.

We hoped to get to the town of Lamia before nightfall, which Stephan said was about a six and a half hour ride at a canter, but of course the horses couldn't keep up a canter for six and a half hours. We ended up stopping for a half hour break every two hours, meaning it would have taken us a little over eight hours to reach the town. In the end Stephan changed his mind and said that we would have to get over a small line of mountains to reach Olympus, and that Lamia was slightly out of our way from the easiest place to cross them - a gap in the mountains slightly west of the town. The day went by uneventfully, which was both fortunate and boring. We finally stopped in a clearing of a stretch of woodland, a few kilometres south of the gap through the mountains, and had a light supper before preparing to go to sleep, despite the fact it was still only early evening. Thalia offered to take first watch, since she was the only person who had got more than a few hours sleep last night, and the rest of us settled down in blankets to go to sleep.


	4. Annabeth makes a mistake

**Hi, I hope you are all enjoying my story so far, here is chapter 4. Please review to tell me what you think.**

I dreamt I was in a dark chamber. It isn't unusual for demigods to have dreams, they show us things that are going on and can sometimes be useful. I can't say that this was a useful dream though. In my dream I saw the Athena Parthenos. I was confused, the Athena Parthenos was in the Parthenon in Athens, yet it was definitely the same statue - a 40 foot tall gold and ivory replica of my mother. It was also completely covered in webs. It suddenly burst into flames, but these weren't random, the flames formed a pattern, an owl, the sacred symbol of my mother. The fiery owl burnt the webs away from the statue and began to fade. As it faded away tiny spiders began to rush towards me, thousands, even millions of them in a great wave. I tried to run turn and run, but I couldn't; I was rooted to the ground. I wanted to believe that I wasn't moving because this was just a dream, and you can't move in dreams, but I knew better. I was petrified with fear. I had always been terrified of spiders and now millions of them were rushing toward me. Just as the first one reached me, I woke up, gasping for the breath I didn't realise I had been holding. **(A/N: so just to say, the Athena Parthenos and the mark of Athena and all that stuff doesn't have anything to do with my story, I just put it in to give Annabeth a nightmare)**

It was still dark, however I could tell that it was close to dawn, as the moon was low in the sky and in the East a grey light was beginning to appear in the East. I tried to calm myself down, but my dream freaked me out too much. I looked around for whoever was supposed to be keeping guard, and noticed Piper sitting against a tree at the edge of the clearing. I had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing when I saw her head against her chest, fast asleep.

I wanted to wake her up to laugh at her for falling asleep when she was supposed to be keeping watch, but I realised that this was a perfect opportunity to sneak away for a walk with no one noticing. I would be back before anyone woke up, and I was too messed up to just sit around doing nothing. It wasn't like anyone had attacked us or anything since we had left Athens, not even the occasional stray monster attack most demigods face while travelling. Maybe I was being stupid, but my dream had terrified me and I really just wanted some space. I had my dagger anyway, so I could protect myself. No one would need to know. I pulled up the hood of my cloak and hurried out to the edge of the clearing, trying not to wake my brothers who were sleeping on the ground a few meters away from me. Naturally that was where it all went wrong.

I had been completely focused on not waking my brothers, and had forgotten about the last member of our party, until she was hanging upside down from a tree, her face inches from mine. And Thalia did not look happy.

Thalia has this tent that she got from the hunters, which can expand or collapse in seconds. Despite this, we wanted to stay fairly hidden and a massive tent is not the way to go, so instead she sleeps in the lowest branches of a tree. This sort of amuses me since she is deathly afraid of heights (a secret she would rather I didn't share... oh, oops) but she doesn't mind as long as it isn't a height she can injure herself from. So yeah, she was sleeping in a tree and woke up when I came near her, and hung upside down from the branches to stop me. She has a dramatic flair like that.

'Where do you think you're going?' She asked, her bright blue eyes furious. She can be pretty scary when she wants to. 'You were just going to leave us and run off?'

'It wasn't like that,' I tried to explain. 'I just wanted to go for a walk. I would be back before anyone would even notice I'd gone.'

'And what if you weren't?' Thalia hissed, still fuming. 'What if your brothers woke up before you were back? Piper would be in so much trouble. Would you really do that to your friend? Or worse, what if something happened to you? Piper would never forgive herself. Your brothers would never forgive themselves, or her. Athena would never forgive any of us. Do you even care?'

I wanted to come up with a convincing argument, but Thalia was right. No one would forgive themselves if something happened to me and I hadn't even thought about it. 'I just wanted to be alone, clear my thoughts. I had a nightmare and I just...' I trailed off, not knowing what to say.

When I mentioned nightmares, Thalia didn't seem to relax, but her expression softened a little. They were something almost all demigods understood. The daughter of Zeus' expression suggested that I wasn't the only one who had been having difficult dreams. 'Stay within shouting distance' she said. 'And be back in ten minutes or I'm waking the cavalry.' She nodded to the sleeping figures on the floor, which looked slightly strange since she was still hanging upside down.

'You're letting me go?' I asked, surprised. When Thalia gets an idea in her head she is usually pretty determined. I guess some part of her remembered I was still her friend.

'Gods know why,' she said, rolling her eyes. 'If your brothers wake up I'll take the blame off Piper. And anyway, you only have nine minutes now.'

I hurried through the dark woodland. The sky was now completely grey, showing that dawn was about to arrive, however under the trees it was still cold and dark; I was grateful for my thick cloak. I decided to stick to the stream that ran through the woodland near our campsite, since it would be easy to follow it back. At first I had just wanted to move, and had run about half a kilometre along the side of the river. I found myself in another clearing, slightly bigger than the one we had camped in, however a large tree was growing in the centre of it. Tired out from my run I sat down against the trunk of the tree, allowing myself to relax. Of course, that's when it all started to go wrong.

The first thing I heard was a strange hissing sound, like snakes. The hissing seemed to be surrounding me, and getting closer. I stood up and drew my dagger, trying to work out where the hissing was coming from, but it seemed to be everywhere. I didn't understand it until I saw the snake people, coming out from the trees, all around me. They had a human-like top half, although I saw from those who were hissing that they had a forked tongue. Their bottom half however was two snake trunks, slithering across the ground. I remembered their name from some of the myths I had read - _dracaenas_.

They were all armed with spears and I knew against all of them in combat, there were about three dozen, I wouldn't stand a chance with my dagger. That left my favourite tactic - trickery and brains.

'So...' I began to say. I was cut short. A spear in your chest tends to do that to you. The snake woman directly in front of me had thrown her spear as soon as I had started talking. It had missed the centre of my chest which probably stopped me from dying instantly, but had hit the side, going straight through. I'm talking about this so calmly. In reality my thoughts were slightly more colourful things I probably shouldn't put into writing. I knew I would be dead, I now didn't even have the option to defend myself, and the spear was blurring my thoughts, making it hard to concentrate. The monsters closed in slowly, knowing I was in no position to put up a fight. Thalia wouldn't come looking for me for another five minutes or so, and even then she would take time finding me. By then I would be long dead. Sixteen years and this was how I went out, on my knees, impaled by spears, the world blurred by pain. I tried to raise my knife (why, I don't know, it wasn't like I could actually fight) and prepared myself for death.

* * *

 **Sorry for the short chapter, and the cliffhanger ending, but in the next one Annabeth meets Percy for the first time! Please tell me what you think, what do you like? What don't you like? Until next time.**

 **-Salty**


	5. Percy Jackson

**Hope you are all enjoying the story so far. Here is chapter 5.**

'Kill them!' I heard someone shout. Although I didn't recognise the voice, it was definitely male. It sounded far away, although that may have just been me beginning to black out with pain. Everything began to get dark, but I heard sounds of fighting. I inched my head up to try and see what was going on, but fell back down, dazed.

'Oh gods, she's still alive.' The same person who had shouted the first command spoke again, although he seemed to be closer, and more like he was speaking to himself. 'Will, get over here!' He was yelling again.

I was worried, what were these people going to do to me? And if they could challenge three dozen _dracaenas_ I did not want to be completely at their mercy. I tried to push myself up again, but this time someone put their hand firmly back on my shoulder and pushed me back. 'I wouldn't try that if I were you' a voice said. It was different to the one I had heard shouting orders earlier, more concerned but just as commanding. 'Here, eat this.'

The new boy (this voice was definitely male as well) pushed something into my mouth. I bit into it and recognised the sweet cake that my father made when we were on speaking terms. Ambrosia, I realised, food of the gods. It had healing properties, and although I was still in huge amounts of pain, everything became clearer. I could see properly again: about a dozen teenage boys fighting against the three dozen snake woman. Despite how outnumbered they were, the boys seemed to be holding their own. Most of them carried swords, either bronze or gold, however one boy's sword was black. There were a few other weapons as well, I saw two people with bows, shooting down monsters with every arrow. For some reason a massive elephant was also running around, stomping on the monsters. At least I thought it was an elephant, although perhaps the pain was still making my eyes act funny, because I blinked and there was no elephant, instead a massive grizzly bear. I'm not entirely sure I was seeing that right either. There was one other person, a rider on horse back, who swung a long, golden cavalry sword. I still must have been really injured, because the horse and rider seemed to disappear and reappear behind enemies, slicing them to bits. Fires seemed to randomly appear, burning enemies. Most of them vanished as quickly as they came.

'...bad alright.' I noticed the boy who had fed me ambrosia was still kneeling over me, examining my wound. He had an athletic build with shaggy blond hair and blue eyes. Since the other voice had shouted for someone called Will, I assumed that this was him. He was looking concerned at my injury. When I saw it I almost wanted to throw up. It was oozing blood, and the spear was still in my chest. It had gone right the way through and the point was sticking out my back.

Will began to pull out objects from his bag, a thermos mug, some surgery scissors, something that looked like a needle and thread. I didn't know what he was going to do with any of those things, but since I doubted that any of my brothers, Piper or Thalia could help with an injury like this I decided I had nothing to lose by trusting him. I wanted to look away from the blood so I glanced up, and gasped with fear.

Three snake woman had broken away from the main fight and were coming towards us, spears ready. Will looked up when he heard my gasp, and saw the _dracaenas_ coming toward us. 'Nico!' He yelled, loud enough to be heard over the fight.

A skinny, dark-haired boy with the black sword I had noticed earlier glanced up and shouted quite possibly the strangest battle cry I had heard. 'Serve me!' He yelled, then staggered a few paces forward and collapsed in a heap, about a meter away from us.

'What was that supposed to do?' I asked.

Before Will even got a chance to answer, three skeletal hands broke the surface of the ground. I gave a little yelp, I couldn't help it, when three skeletons emerged from the earth. Will looked unconcerned and went back to working on my injury, and although I felt him slowly pulling the spear out of my side, I didn't take my eyes off the skeletons. They all raised old, rusted swords, and charged against the snake woman. Despite their swords looking like they were new around the time the gods were born, they completely destroyed the monsters, sending their essence back to the eternal abyss.

When the skeletons had killed the monster they sank back into the ground. I wanted to know why they had left, couldn't they stay and protect us some more? Then I realised that we didn't need protecting. The battle was over and all around me the boys were clearing up the remains. I saw no signs of the bear (or the elephant) which I found slightly odd but I decided that was probably the least of anyone's worries. A boy with slightly messy black hair and sea green eyes walked over. I kept my eyes on him since I was determined not to look at what Will was doing; I was sure that seeing an operation on my own body would not be good for last night's dinner. Occasionally I felt tugs or pricks on my side, but I was already in so much pain in that general area that I really couldn't feel much more.

'So you're still alive?' The voice was the same one that I had heard shouting the orders at the beginning of the battle. I didn't know whether that was regret in his voice or not, but I decided I didn't want to know. Even the daughter of Athena can sometimes admit that things are better left unknown.

'I'm guessing this means that you aren't going to kill me?' I asked.

'Don't tempt me.'

'So are you going to just stand there or will you introduce yourselves?' I tried to look defiant but that is pretty hard with someone doing surgery on your side.

'Since we are all the ones with sharp, pointy swords and you are the one with our doctor saving your life, having just had your life saved by all of us, I recommend you introduce yourself first.'

I didn't want to tell this boy my identity when I was supposed to be traveling secretly and I didn't even know who he was, so I hesitated. He gave a sarcastic and really annoying smirk. 'Let me help you out a bit,' he said. 'A daughter of Athena heading to Mount Olympus for protection after all her sisters were assassinated in Athens, during a visit from a goddess. Did I get that right?'

I could tell from his expression he knew perfectly well that he was right, and there was no point trying to contradict him.

'Annabeth Chase, _pleasure_ to meet you.' I tried to put as much scorn into the word pleasure as I could, but my efforts only made him smile more.

'Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon' he said, giving a mocking bow. 'The blondie over there is Jason Grace, son of Zeus.' **(A/N, I'm not adding in the Roman gods as it will just complicate the story. Every god will be in their Greek form if they have them.)** Jason rolled his eyes at Percy and nodded to me. Suddenly I had a thought... Grace. Why did that name sound familiar? Percy had moved on before I could concentrate on it. 'Sleeping beauty over there is Nico di Angelo, son of Hades.' Nico remained firmly asleep after summoning those skeletons. 'You have already met our doctor, Will Solace, son of Apollo, fire boy over there is Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus...' he continued to rattle off a long list of names with interesting nicknames, but despite the fact that most people rolled their eyes at his descriptions of them, no one objected. This was either because they were used to it, or because they were true. I expected it was a bit of both, though why he called Frank Zhang, son of Ares a beast, I had no idea. Sure he was muscular, but I wouldn't describe him as a beast. I hadn't even seen him during the fighting.

I realised that there were twelve members of Percy's team, including the horse rider who had disappeared shortly after the battle. They all seemed to be children of gods. 'So you're a group of boys who go around fighting monsters and stuff?' I asked Percy, after he had finished the introductions.

'Well, not just boys,' he replied, nodding to the rider who had just returned, leading what I assumed were the rest of the groups horses. The rider pulled off a cavalry helmet to reveal golden eyes and frizzy hair. 'That's our witch, Hazel Levesque, daughter of Hades. But yes, we do go around fighting monsters or occasionally running errands for-' he was stopped by two silver arrows that caught some of the lose fabric by his shoulders, pinning him against the tree. I smiled. There was only one person who could have shot those arrows. Thalia had arrived.

 **I've introduced Percy. Yay! Hope you are enjoying so far.**

 **I've just realised I haven't done a disclaimer so here it is. I do not own Percy Jackson, or Heroes of Olympus, and none of the characters are mine.**

 **~Salty**


	6. The Grace Siblings

**Hi. I just want to say a great big thank you to everyone who has reviewed or favourited my story, it is things like that get me up and writing some more. So, here is the next chapter, I hope you are enjoying it so far. -Salty**

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The group burst in to the panic Thalia's arrows often cause, which was kind of amusing. The son of Zeus, Jason, tried to get some control back between the eight other panicking warriors (not including Percy, who was pinned to a tree, Nico, who had woken up but was still looking around groggily, and Will, who was ignoring the drama as he continued to save my life) but was pinned to the tree right next to me by two more of Thalia's arrows. I then realised that it wasn't the arrows that were causing panic. Somewhere to my left I heard a voice shouting 'Be scared, despair for your life!'

Piper's charmspeak was working perfectly, ending any chance of the team regrouping. My brothers came out from behind some bushes, swords drawn, and Thalia jumped from the branches of one of the trees, her bow ready and Aegis on her arm. Aegis is her shield, a replica of her father Zeus', and makes anyone who looks at it terrified. I was impressed when most of the panicking warriors broke free of Pipers charmspeak, which she had stopped when she walked up to join my brothers and Thalia to face off against this group, and went for their swords. 'I wouldn't draw your swords if you value your eyes arrow free,' Thalia growled, turning her bow to point at Will, who was still by my side. 'You,' she snarled, 'get away from her.'

Thalia angry is one of the most terrifying things I have seen (not counting waves of spiders) so I was amazed when Will turned to look at her and calmly said 'currently I am stopping your friend from having an appointment with Hades, so I recommend you point that thing someplace else and let me get on with this.'

I gave her an encouraging nod, really not keen on a visit to the underworld, but Thalia doesn't take insults like that lightly. I don't know what would have happened if Jason hadn't distracted her.

It sounded like he was having a seizure or something, and I twisted my head to look at him, still pinned against the tree. Everyone else looked as surprised as I was, I heard Percy mutter 'you alright bro?' Though what surprised me even more was the way Thalia went deathly pale, as though she was standing at the top of a massive cliff. She lowered her bow, something I had never seen her do in front of potential enemies before, and Aegis morphed back into her silver charm bracelet, but she didn't seem to notice. She walked towards the still gasping Jason, as if in a trance, and yanked the arrows that were holding him out of the tree.

'Do I know you?' She managed to say.

The son of Zeus reached into his pocket and brought out a crumpled piece of paper. On it was a small sketch of Thalia. She looked young, nine or ten maybe, and thanks to her immortality that probably meant it had been drawn over a decade ago. She was still recognisable however. And next to her, a small boy, a toddler I guess. There was a scar on his upper lip, one that matched...

'Jason,' Thalia's voice cracked as she said his name.

'Thalia,' the son of Zeus replied, his voice a mixture of emotions I couldn't decipher.

I suddenly realised. Percy had said Jason's last name was Grace, the same as Thalia's (although she didn't use it). And they were both children of Zeus...

'He's your brother,' I realised. Everyone else looked shocked, and I couldn't blame them. Thalia had never mentioned a brother, and I guessed that Jason had never mentioned having a sister either.

Thalia pulled her brother into a tight hug, which the latter hesitantly returned. 'She said you dead,' the hunter mumbled to Jason. 'Oh gods, twelve years. I thought you were dead.'

Frank had pulled the arrows that were pinning Percy out of the tree, but everyone else was standing around, shell shocked. I didn't even notice Will had finished his operation on my side, everyone was watching Thalia and Jason. Apparently no one had known that either of them had a sibling. They talked together for a few minutes in hushed tones, and I had no idea what they were talking about. How do you share twelve years worth of information in a few short minutes? They pulled apart, and seemed to notice for the first time that everyone was watching them. Thalia's expression went back to her normal, determined look, however Jason looked slightly nervous.

'Well that was fun,' said a curly haired boy with a cheeky grin, who I think Percy had introduced as Leo. 'Anyone else got any long lost siblings they want to share with us while we're at it?'

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 **I know, I know, this is a really short chapter. I promise all the others will be longer but I just wanted to put in the Thalia Jason meeting scene, and it has taken me a while to get it how I want it. It is different to how Rick did it, I wanted to have Thalia less confident about finding her long lost brother. Why Jason has that picture will be explained, although perhaps not for several chapters. But thanks to the people who have read and liked my story, when I started writing I never thought so many people would. -Salty**


	7. Backstory (kinda)

We walked back to the clearing we had camped in last night with Percy's monster hunters (I found out that he led the group). Malcom was furious that I had walked off in the middle of the night and lectured me all the way there. I tried to show I was sorry, although he was still fuming by the time we reached our camp. Thanks to Will's healing and a little more ambrosia I could walk again, although my side was still painful. Will estimated it would be completely healed in about a day, although I was glad to sit down at the end of the walk. Percy's team all sat down around the clearing, obviously relieved to get some rest after their fight. I still had questions for Percy I wanted to ask.

'You seemed to know a lot about who I was and what my plans were,' I stated. 'How did you know?'

Percy shrugged. 'Poseidon told me,' he said, like it was obvious. I was finding his sarcasm and general attitude more and more annoying as I talked to him.

'And how did Poseidon know?' I asked.

'I don't know exactly, but it went something along the lines of: Athena rushes up to Olympus, upset that she now only has one daughter, and wants to protect her by bringing her to Olympus. She wants someone to protect the group she sent on their way to Olympus-'

'So she asked Poseidon to send you?' I butted in.

Percy looked at me like I was stupid, which made me hate him even more. 'Course not, Athena hates Poseidon. She will probably explode when she finds out that _we_ are the guards she wanted.' He gave a sly grin. 'I can't wait. But anyway, Athena went to Zeus, who went to Dionysus who went to Hephaestus who went to Ares who went to Poseidon saying that Athena wants to find a team to protect her daughter on her way from Athens to Olympus. So here we are.'

Albert scowled into the breakfast that had been quickly prepared when we got back to our camp. 'You found us so easily,' he pointed out. 'Surely whoever is after Annabeth will be able to find us easily too.'

The big guy, Frank, shook his head. 'We knew where you were heading and which route you were likely to take. After that we could just follow the big group of _draceanas,_ assuming they had picked up your sent. Whoever is after you shouldn't have access to that kind of information.'

'That's assuming the _draceanas_ weren't working for whoever wants you dead,' Nico pointed out.

'You sir,' Percy responded, 'are a ray of sunshine.'

* * *

After everyone had finished eating breakfast, we packed up camp and prepared the horses for the next stage of our journey. Most of Percy's group had normal horses, the exceptions being Jason, who's horse, Tempest, seemed to be made out of thunderstorms, and Percy, who rode a black pegasus called Blackjack. The most interesting horse however was Hazel's, even though he looked like a normal horse, albeit well-bred. Apparently the horse was the immortal son of Poseidon and Demeter, and was the fastest thing over land or sea. I found it kind of amusing that Percy had a horse as his half-brother, but Percy told me that he had so many relatives it was better not to think about it.

We started our journey at a fast canter, and made it to the gap in the mountains in under half an hour.

'So how did you end up with your team, hunting monsters?' I asked Percy, who I had ended up riding beside.

Percy gave a lopsided grin. He had scruffy black hair and sea green eyes, which were both annoying and beautiful. I decided to focus on the annoying part. 'I originally just fought monsters by myself, protecting Corinth, where I lived.' He told me. 'I had been doing that since I was eight years old. A couple of years later I began to meet other demigods who also fought monsters to protect their cities. Together we formed a kind of unofficial pact to help each other - Lee, Beckendorf, Travis and Connor, a few others. For a while we worked together, however the team that we have today started when we found Jason a few years back. We're still not entirely sure where he came from, he would never tell us anything about himself, other than the fact he is a son of Zeus, and of course now we also know he has a sister, but he was well trained and a powerful demigod. Also, being the son of Zeus, he gave us a lot more connections to the gods and Olympus. Then we properly made the monster hunters, and now we focus of finding the most dangerous monsters and taking them out. We decided on a team of twelve demigods, since Nico suggested it was a powerful number: twelve Olympians, twelve Titan sons of Gaia etc. So here we are.'

I hated to admit it, but I was impressed at how much he had done. I couldn't believe how much responsibility he had put on himself at such a young age, protecting his entire city from monsters at eight years old. I wondered why Jason wouldn't tell anyone what happened to him after he was separated from Thalia at the age of three (Thalia was ten according to her, she had run away from home just after he disappeared). He didn't seem untrustworthy, so I could only assume that whatever he was hiding, he had a good reason to. I listened in to Thalia and Jason's conversation, to hear what they were talking about (definately NOT eavesdropping thank you very much). Thalia was telling Jason about their mother, although I knew that Thalia had hated her mother so it was unlikely she was saying anything good.

'Do you keep in touch with your family?' I asked Percy.

Instantly I knew I had asked a bad question. His knuckles turned white where he gripped his reins and face flashed with anger.

'I'm going to scout ahead,' he said, and urged his pegasus into the air.

I understood not getting on with your family, my dad and I argued all the time. But Percy's expression suggested that there was more to it. I wondered what had happened to his family that made him close up like that. It was almost lucky I didn't have long to think about it.

* * *

The path through the mountains is one of the only ones you can use to get into the north of Greece. This meant that it would be the ideal place for an ambush. As we entered the mountain path I saw many people fingering their swords or readying their bows. I tightened my grip on my dagger. Half an hour of nervous silence started our trip through the mountain, which was abruptly broken by roaring in the distance. My head shot up and gasped. Percy was flying back, being chased by an acid-spitting monster with at least ten heads. The monster was still in the distance but closing rapidly when Percy landed. 'Hydra!' He shouted, kind of unnecessarily I thought.

I wasn't too worried, there was seventeen of us against one hydra, and demigods were trained for this kind of thing. That bit of relief was blown to pieces by Frank. I realised I hadn't seen him since we started our journey, so assumed he had taken the task of keeping watch of our rear. I was slightly surprised by the fact he didn't have a horse, but that thought was knocked out of my brain when he shouted to Percy ' _Dracaenas,_ coming up from behind. They will be here very soon and there is a lot of them.'

Percy cursed, loudly. 'How many?'

'Fifty or sixty.'

I saw the problem. Since we had horses we would have easily been able to out run the _dracaenas_ , but we would be slowed down by the hydra, and so get closed in from both sides. There would be no way of getting away without fighting all the monsters, and there was no telling that we would be able to win against that number. We stopped our horses, there was no point running into either fight until we had made a plan. I realised everyone was watching Percy; what he did, whether it was panic or show confidence, would then reflect the entire teams mood. I was impressed when he took a deep breath and held himself with confidence.

'I'll take the hydra,' he said, 'With me Leo, Frank, Hazel and Annabeth?' He looked at me for confirmation, which I gave. 'Okay, Jason, lead everyone else and kill the _dracaenas.'_

'But Percy, what if we can't?' One of Percy's hunters, a son of Apollo named Lee Fletcher, voiced the question I could see a lot of the fighters were too scared to ask. How could twelve people fight against fifty or sixty monsters? They hadn't struggled a whole lot with the ones earlier, but now there was almost twice as many and they were still tired by this morning's fight.

'Just hold them off. Hopefully after we get rid of the hydra we can get back to the horses and escape.' I could tell that no one was convinced by Percy's plan, but no one had a better one so we began to dismount from our horses; Percy, Leo, Frank, Hazel and I turned towards the oncoming hydra, while everyone else began to group together to face the snake-women.

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 **So I have reached 500 views on my story, which is amazing. I want to thank everyone who has reviewed or liked or followed my story, it's that which has kept me both writing and posting. Anyway, story I haven't been able to post in a few days, but I have had today off and now I have the weekend so hopefully I'll be able to post a few more chapters in the next couple of days. I promise, there is much more Percabeth coming.**

 **~Salty**


	8. Fighting the Hydra

'I reckon we have another minute before the hydra is close enough to spray us with acid,' I said. We could see the hydra in the distance, the path we had taken was nicely straight and flat so that we could see our impending doom. 'Does anyone have a plan?'

'You're the daughter of Athena,' Percy pointed out, 'aren't plans what you're good at?'

I rolled my eyes. 'You're monster hunters, so have you ever fought a hydra before?'

'Well yes,' Frank said, fiddling with something in his pocket, 'but last time it was all twelve of us against one hydra, and we had cannons.'

I took the strategic decision not to ask about the cannons.

'Leo,' asked Percy, 'can you call Festus?'

'Who's Festus?' I asked.

'Festus is my massive bronze dragon automaton.' Leo replied. 'And no, I can't call him because _you_ told me that Festus was too obvious and we didn't want to draw attention to ourselves so I couldn't bring him along on this mission.'

'Actually I'm pretty sure that was Jason.'

'Look,' Hazel warned, 'now is not the time.'

She was right, the hydra was getting much closer and we still had no plan.

'What powers do you have?' I asked.

'You mean other than my good looks?' I rolled my eyes at Leo. 'I'm a fire user, I can summon and control it. I also can't get burned.'

'Does that include being burnt by acid?'

'Honestly, I'm not planning of finding out, but I doubt it.'

'Okay, Percy?'

'Other than being an amazing sword fighter I can control water,' he replied. 'Although there isn't any around here.'

'Don't you ever carry extra water with you, if it is so useful?'

The strange look he gave me made me sorry I asked. I could see where Leo and Percy's powers came from, Leo being a son of Hephaestus, God of fire, and Percy being the son of the sea god, but Frank and Hazel's powers surprised me. Other than being brave and strong fighters, children of Ares normally didn't have powers, but Frank could apparently shape-shift into any living creature. Hazel could control precious gems and metals, had flawless accuracy underground, collapse and change the course of tunnels and alter reality by controlling the mist, a veil which can alter what people see. Thalia could do it to a certain extent, but the way Hazel was talking suggested her power over the mist was at least ten times stronger than Thalia's. A plan began to form in my mind.

By the time I finished explaining the plan the hydra was almost on top of us, clearly not realising that it was within acid spitting distance yet. The others agreed, except for Leo who looked unconvinced. 'I'm not sure I can do that much fire. It makes me really tired.'

I remembered Nico after he had finished summoning the skeletons. The last thing we wanted was an unconscious Leo half way through our fight.

'I think I can help,' Frank said.

'How?' I asked, but we were running out of time. Percy and Hazel had already run off to start their part of the plan, and the hydra was closing in fast, a few more seconds and we would be hydra meat.

'Just trust me, now scatter!' It was easy for Frank to say, he turned into a crow and flew into the air, out of the hydra's reach as four of its heads closed down on us.

I stabbed my dagger into one of the heads, not killing it, but I definitely gave it a headache. I jumped over the head and rolled out of the way. I didn't see if Leo was alright; I couldn't spot him when I turned around, but thanks to Hazel's mist magic that meant nothing. I just had to hope he was alright. I ran back into the sea of hydra heads, stabbing and slashing with my dagger whenever one came close. My job was to distract the hydra heads, and it was definitely working, but I couldn't keep going like this. I had to keep moving to stay ahead of the acid and teeth, and I was already getting tired. I just had to hope everyone else would begin their part of the plan soon.

Hazel showed herself first. She appeared on Arion, right next to one of the heads, sliced through it and vanished as soon as she had appeared. A fireball came flying towards the stump of the head and burnt it, before the head could multiply and regrow. The plan was and edited version on how Hercules had beaten the hydra in the old stories: I cause a distraction to stop the hydra rampaging, Hazel or Percy slice a head off and then Frank or Leo burn it to stop the stump regrowing into two new heads. For a while it seemed to be working. Hazel had used the mist so that everyone except me were invisible until they were close enough to attack, and then disappear straight after. Fireballs appeared randomly courtesy of Leo, and occasionally a grey dragon flew in, blowing fire on the stump. When I first saw the dragon I assumed it was another enemy to fight and got nervous, until I realised it had to be Frank. We were making progress, but there was still five heads left when it all began to go wrong.

Perhaps the Hydra got lucky, or perhaps it was never fooled by the mist to begin with. Whatever the cause however, when Hazel moved to take another head, the hydra noticed her and swung at her. Arion's agility and speed avoided the acid blast that would have been fatal from that range, but the head bit at her, sending here flying off her horse and crumpled on the ground, blood leaking out of her wounds.

The mist Hazel was controlling collapsed, leaving everyone visible, and I saw she wasn't the only one who was having problems. Leo wasn't wrong when he said that fire tired him out, he was kneeling on the ground, exhausted; his normal energy and almost infectious smile gone. Percy still seemed to be fine, he stood in front of Leo protectively, his sword held tightly and his bright green eyes furious. Sometimes, when Thalia got really angry, the air around her would crackle and spark with electricity, and every muscle in your body would scream 'run'. Looking at Percy was like that; it was enough that a few of the heads backed off, he kept the rest at bay with a few well aimed jabs with his sword.

Frank the dragon had picked Hazel up, and was now flying up and away from the fighting. Hopefully if she had some ambrosia and nectar she would be fine, but I didn't have time to worry. Instead I started thinking. We had been using the strategy Hercules used, and sure, it worked, but we had lost our ability to create fire and maybe there was a better way... I came up with an idea so crazy it might just work. A couple of heads had come towards me, and I had to act. One of the heads came forward to bite at me, and as it did so I jumped. Somehow I managed to get onto the head, my dagger stabbing it sort of unintentionally. The head reared up in pain, and as it did so I slid down its long neck, using my dagger as a sort of brake or stabiliser. It wasn't pretty and it was undeniably stupid, but I was out of options. Leaving a long cut down the neck of the hydra, my dagger embedded to the hilt, I landed on its large back. I didn't know much about the anatomy of a hydra, in fact I knew nothing. But, making my best guess, I picked a point and plunged the dagger in.

The effect was instantaneous. The whole monster went rigid, and starting at the hilt of my dagger tiny cracks spread out. In less than a second the entire hydra was a pile of dust, and I was crouching right in the centre.

Percy raised an eyebrow when he saw me. 'That was... different,' he said.

I shrugged. 'I killed it.'

'I wasn't criticising.'

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag of ambrosia. Breaking off a piece, he fed it to the barely conscious Leo. I couldn't help but notice how this Percy; kind, friendly, caring, was so different from the terrifying one I saw when he was fighting the hydra. It was like they were two separate people. Leo yawned and woke up, the ambrosia working it's way through his system, giving him back his usual energy.

'The hydra's dead,' he noted, sitting up.

'Yeah, Annabeth killed it,' Percy agreed.

'Cool, how?' He asked, looking at me.

I shrugged. 'The "cutting the heads off and burning the stumps" plan wasn't really working, so I came up with a new one. I got on it's back and stabbed where I assumed the heart was. It clearly worked.'

'Aw man, could you have thought of that before I collapsed from exhaustion? Where's Hazel and Frank anyways?' He asked looking around.

'Hazel got injured and Frank flew her away from the fight,' Percy explained and a crow landed on the ground in front of them, a crow that turned into the aforementioned teenager. 'How's Hazel?'

Frank scowled. 'She's alright now she has had some ambrosia,' he explained in a tone that showed she was clearly not alright. From what I could tell Frank was hugely protective of Hazel, and was not happy she had been hurt. 'But,' he continued, 'the fight against the dracaenas over there is not going well. I came to get you to help.'

* * *

 **So, here it is, chapter 8. I was planning on publishing more today, and I'm sorry I didn't, but I decided that I wasn't happy with how I had previously written this, so have spent some time pretty much rewriting this entire chapter. I think it is much better now.**

 **So I don't want to ruin anything, but in the next chapter I definitely have some evil plans, Muahahaha.**

 **-Salty, out**


	9. Dracaenas and Loss

Frank was right. We ran over to where they were fighting and found that it was not going well. I would guess that about twenty _dracaenas_ were still alive, but only six of our group were still in fighting shape. Nico was fighting with four skeletons against six _dracaenas_. As I watched, one of the skeletons got a spear in the head and went down. Thalia and Piper were still standing which I was relieved to see, Piper was trying to defend herself against two of the monsters with just her bronze sword. Thalia was running between the monsters, slashing with her two hunting knives which I guess meant she had run out of arrows. Lightning would zap monsters, occasionally turning them to dust, however with that much lightning coming down I guessed that Thalia was getting exhausted. Jason and Malcom were also still standing, but they were surrounded by nine more snake-women. Gusts of wind would deflect any spears that were thrown towards them, I guess that was thanks to Jason, and Malcom was doing an impressive job of keeping them away with his sword but they were getting tired too. Will Solace was with everyone else, trying to keep everyone alive and occasionally picking up a sword and stabbing at monsters if they got too close. With some kind of unspoken command the four of us ran into the fight, to help our outnumbered friends.

In all the battle didn't last very long. The _dracaenas_ were badly equipped with mostly blunt spears and weren't the greatest fighters, the only reason that they had managed to injure so many was that they had outnumbered their opponents five to one, allowing everyone to be completely surrounded. When we finished the last of them off we found that the casualties were not as bad as they could have been. Hazel was doing okay, and managed to get back on Arion with only a little help. Most people had been knocked unconscious by the blunt spears but were up again thanks to a little ambrosia. There were two broken bones which Will Solace fixed and predicted they would make a full recovery in a day. Everyone was in good spirits as they had survived another battle, until they saw Lee Fletcher.

The son of Apollo had been found surrounded by the armour and weapons of the monsters he had taken out before his death, but had clearly been overwhelmed. His body was found with a spear through his chest, his open eyes glassy and unseeing. Will could do nothing but close the eyelids of his half-brother, and burn his body in a golden shroud, surrounded by the weapons and armour of the monsters he had killed before he died. Nico muttered some quiet words to the body, and we watched it go up in flames. As we started our journey, Percy left to scout ahead again, his head bowed and his hands tight.

'He needs some time,' Nico muttered to me as I watched Percy fly into the distance.

'Is this the first time one of his monster hunters has died?'

He shook his head, 'Probably won't be the last either. He takes the death of anyone he knows badly, especially since-'

'Since what?' I asked, but Nico had disappeared back into the group. He had a habit of doing that.

Everyone rode on with bowed heads, not speaking unless absolutely necessary. We had been riding for several hours and Percy still wasn't back, but I was told not to worry. He wouldn't come back unless there was a problem, or if he had found somewhere to camp for the night. We had long since cleared the mountains and so began to go cross country, through fields and over streams. The horse without a rider was always obvious, sticking out as we rode on with shadows lengthening around us.

Percy arrived back, muttering that he had found somewhere to stop the the night, and led us for another mile or so into a secluded clearing in the middle of a forest. Percy nodded at two sons of Hermes, who I think were called Conner and Travis, to keep watch first, while everyone else began to set up camp. Unlike the last two nights where we had slept under the stars to be less obvious, there was enough of us that it now didn't matter to pitch tents to sleep in. Thalia had one of her tents from being a hunter which could just fold out of a tiny packet on command and was big enough to fit four people in, so she offered to share it with me, Piper and Hazel. Because of that we were finished long before anyone else, so built a small campfire and sat around it, beginning to cook some dinner.

'Did you know Lee well?' Piper asked Hazel.

Hazel kept her golden eyes on the fire as she spoke. 'I don't think I ever had a conversation with him without other people around, but I've known him for a while now, so like all the monster hunters he was like a second family to me.'

'Do you have other family?' I asked her.

She still kept her eyes on the fire when she spoke. 'The only family other than Hades and Nico I had was my mother, and she died a long time ago.' The way Hazel said it made me think that there was more to the statement than she was letting on, but I didn't pry.

Thalia surprised me by speaking. 'Nico had a sister, didn't he? Bianca di Angelo?'

Hazel nodded slowly.

'How did you know that?' Piper asked.

'I was trying to remember why I had heard the name di Angelo before. A girl joined the hunters around the same time I did, called Bianca di Angelo. She died shortly after, probably went to Elysium. She was Nico's sister, wasn't she?'

'Your right.' Hazel tucked a stray curl of hair behind her ear. 'Nico wanted to bring Bianca back from the underworld, but she had decided to be reborn into a new life before Nico had the chance. So he found me and decided to bring me to join the monster hunters, a sort of consolation prize I guess.'

Looking around the camp I saw most people had set up their tents by now. Most of them were small, one or two man tents which would be easier to carry. The exception I noticed (other that Thalia's) was one I guessed belonged to Leo and Beckendorf, the sons of Hephaestus. It was easily three times as big as any of the other ones, and had several cogs and wires around the joints, suggesting it went up and down mechanically. By the way the two brothers were relaxing, I guessed that it was almost as quick as Thalia's to set up. What surprised me was that I saw Percy, Jason, Frank and Nico talking to Malcom at the far end of the clearing. I wondered what they were talking about.

'Percy and Jason want Malcom to do something, but he is unsure about it,' Piper said.

'What are talking about?' I asked.

'You were looking like you wanted to know what they were talking about.' She replied with a shrug.

I had to remind myself that Piper was a daughter of Aphrodite and could read faces and body-language better than anyone else I knew (excluding gods, they didn't count).

Hazel looked surprised. 'So Percy and Jason are trying to force Malcom to do something he doesn't want to?'

'No, force is too strong.' Piper glanced at her. 'They are trying to _convince_ him to do it, and anyway, he wants to do it, but for some reason he is unsure about agreeing to it.'

'It is a shame that your amazing skills doesn't cover what they want him to do,' Thalia scowled.

'If you want to know so badly, go ask them. This is as much as I can work out without getting closer.'

'That won't be needed.'

'How do you know?'

'Because Malcom is coming over right now.'

I looked over and saw Thalia was right, Malcom was walking straight over to us. I stood up as he came near.

'Annabeth, can I talk to you?' He looked slightly nervous, which surprised me. Children of Athena always try to look confident.

'Sure.' I led him behind a tree, so that Piper couldn't read our expressions.

'What did Percy and Jason ask you to do?'

'How did you- oh, right, Piper.' Now that we were alone Malcom had got some of his confidence back.

'So what was it?'

'They invited me to join the monster hunters.'

I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't that, however it made sense. Percy was down a fighter, and Malcom was the obvious choice. He had proved himself as a strong fighter this morning, being one of the best fighters in Athens, and had the brains that all children of Athena possess.

'It's a great idea, you should definitely say yes.'

'But I promised to protect you. How am I supposed to do that if I'm busy with the monster hunters?'

'You promised to protect me on the way to Olympus, as did the monster hunters, so that's not a problem. What's the real reason you're nervous about accepting?'

Malcom snorted. 'Can't hide anything from children of Athena.'

'So...' I prompted.

'How do you think our mother would react if she found out that one of her children had run off to join a group led be a son of Poseidon?'

'Ahh.'

Poseidon and Athena are enemies. They have argued with each other ever since their debate on who got to be the patron god of Athens, and that was before the whole thing with Medusa. I was sure Athena would be furious if she found her children and Poseidon's mixing. 'I wouldn't worry. It's not like it's her choice what you do with your life. I doubt she would get too mad.'

'You sure about that?'

'No.'

Malcom sighed, closing his grey eyes. 'Look, I'll have to see how things turn out. I think that the monster hunters need some time after Lee Fletcher's death, and I want to get to know this new team before I commit to anything. If I still want to accept the offer when we reach Olympus, I will do it then.'

I smiled at him, and together we walked back towards the camp where dinner was being served.

* * *

 **So, there is chapter 9. I may not be publishing for a while, thanks to school and everything, but I will try and do what I can. But, for now,**

 **-Salty**


	10. Percy and Annabeth sitting in a tree

I watched as Malcom went and spoke to Percy and Jason, telling them his decision. I got as much food as I could, realising that this was my first hot meal in a while. It was grilled steaks, toasted bread, cheese, dried olives and dried fruit, and I filled my plate greedily. I noticed that there were three small fires around the camp, so I went and sat with the other girls, huddled against the cold night.

'What was that about?' Piper asked me as I sat down.

'Ha. Piper's just annoyed that you led Malcom behind a tree so she couldn't find out what you were saying,' Thalia teased. 'But you better tell us what you were talking about.'

'Malcom was invited to join the monster hunters,' I explained.

If anyone was surprised they didn't show it, which made me feel even more awkward that I hadn't expected it.

'So you told him to say no,' Piper concluded.

'What? Why would you think that? I thought it was a great idea.'

'Err... Annabeth?' Thalia looked like she was trying not to laugh. 'You know Percy is a son of Poseidon. Athena will kill him if he joins.'

'I think you're over reacting. How much can Athena actually do? I mean it's Malcom's choice, and Athena is wiser than to do something as rash as getting angry about what her children do.' Even as I said that, I had a feeling that everything wouldn't be quite that diplomatic.

'I hope you're right,' Piper said. 'So is he going to accept?'

'He said he would think about it,' I replied.

Looking around the various camp fires I noticed that there weren't as many people as there should have been. There were thirteen people huddled round the campfires, and if you counted the two people on guard, we were still one short.

'Where's Nico?' I asked.

Hazel took a moment before answering. 'Whenever someone dies, like Lee, Nico goes down to the underworld to make sure that the soul gets across the river quickly, because often souls can be waiting for Charon's ferry for years. And then he makes sure that they get a fair judgment, and send and bring back final messages between us and Lee. It sort of helps, as a final goodbye.'

'And can you do that as well, being the daughter of Hades?'

Hazel shook her head, looking slightly nervous. 'I only control riches and things, but even if I could, I wouldn't.'

'Why not?'

'I've been to the underworld once. That was enough.'

Hazel was answering my questions, but there was a slight edge to her voice which was saying "enough with the personal stuff". I stopped talking, and went back to looking around the camp, letting my eyes wander. I stopped at Percy, my eyes watching him for several seconds. I guessed he must have sensed that someone was watching him because he looked over. I let me eyes drop to my dinner before he noticed I was looking.

Glancing up again I was surprised to see that Jason's eyes were looking over at us, specifically at Piper. I smiled inwardly to myself. Piper had a special place reserved in her imagination for boys who fell in love with her. She would simply tell them to do crazy and bizarre things with her best charmspeak, and of course they would just do it. Afterwards any reputation they had would be shattered, and most of them would then need a therapist, like the guy with the chicken and the olives who... but I'm getting distracted. The point is, boys who fall in love with Piper are lucky to leave with their sanity intact. I felt bad for Jason when I saw that Piper noticed him looking at her, or at least I did until I saw that they made eye contact, and both dropped their gaze. In the firelight Piper's face looked remarkably flushed.

I wasn't the only one trying not to laugh. The two them kept glancing up at each other, but looked back down as soon as they noticed. Soon Thalia and Hazel joined me in biting our lips to stop making any sound, trying not to catch each other's eyes as we knew that would set us off.

'What are you doing with my baby brother?' Thalia asked, still straining to stop herself from laughing.

If it was possible, Piper's face went even redder than it already was. 'I- I'm- I mean-' Piper stammered.

That was the last straw. The floodgates opened and all three of us were rolling on the floor laughing. Laughter went up from around Jason, and I imagined that the boys over there had been trying to hold in the laughter for as long as us.

'Right that's it,' Piper scowled. 'Say you are sorry and I'll let you off lightly.'

'I'm...' Thalia gasped for breath, tears of laughter in her eyes as she looked straight at Piper. 'I'm so sorry that your first crush had to be my little brother.'

I couldn't help it, I snorted loudly at that. Hazel admirably kept a straight face, which probably managed to excuse her from whatever revenge Piper had in store for us.

'Annabeth, there is a spider on your back.'

I couldn't help it, I yelped and began rolling around on the ground, trying to get it off. Sure, I knew in my mind that there wasn't a spider on my back, that it was all just a trick, but fears are illogical and Pipers charmspeak worked perfectly, terrifying me about a spider I knew didn't really exist. I guess it helps that Piper's half-brother is Phobos, God of fear.

Piper then turned to Thalia, with an evil smile on her face, and I knew she had something big planned. I wondered what it could be. Maybe Piper would tell Thalia to climb to the top of the tree. That would terrify her. But Piper paused as though she was still wondering what to say. She whispered something in the hunters ear, and Thalia went deathly pale and her eyes widened as Piper spoke. As I watched Thalia turned to Piper, her normal colour restored and her eyes fierce. Whatever Piper had told her, it had terrified her.

'Ok, I'm sorry for laughing. Quits?'

I couldn't believe my ears. Thalia NEVER said sorry, about anything. I wondered if this would affect their friendship. Thalia wasn't one to forgive and forget. Piper smiled

'Quits,' she agreed and took the hand the daughter of Zeus held out for her, suddenly yelping as Thalia sent a shock of electricity into her hand. 'Ok, I deserved that. Now can we call it quits?'

'I thought we already had.'

'I hate you.'

Thalia walked off, and I looked at Piper in surprise. 'What did you tell her? I have never seen anyone get an apology out of her before.'

'Honestly I have no idea what she heard me say.' Piper fiddled with the feather at the end of her braid. 'I told her in my best charmspeak "you will hear me say something about yourself that you don't know you know, something that will make you apologise to me and fear me but not hate me for." I have practiced something like that a few times before, and some people I talked to said that they heard me tell them their fatal flaw, others their secret romances. Maybe with Thalia it was different, maybe not, but I doubt we will ever get a confession as to what she heard me say.'

'That sounds a lot like a siren,' Hazel pointed out. 'With less eating victims at the end.'

'Can you do it to me?' I asked. Hazel was right, it was like a siren, and I had always wanted to hear the sirens call. They said that if you survived the encounter you would be wiser for it. Maybe it was the same with Piper's charmspeak.

She shook her head. 'It doesn't work if you know how it works if you have a strong mind like yours. I could try, but I promise all you will hear is exactly what I say. The only reason it worked with Thalia was that she was expecting me to tell her bad things, or make her do something weird, which allowed her mind to bend more.'

'That is an awful lot like how the mist works. It works best if you show them what they are expecting to see.' Hazel fiddled with what looked like a ruby. 'I imagine that there are a lot of similarities between charmspeak and the mist. They are both branches of a similar type of magic after all.'

'Huh.' Piper looked surprised. 'I never thought about my charmspeak being magic rather than just a power, but I suppose you are right.'

~~~~~THIS LINE BREAK REPRESENTS THE PASSING OF TIME~~~~~

The night passed away, and it was an hour or so before dawn when Percy shook me awake. 'It's time for us to take a turn at watch,' he said, speaking quietly so that he didn't wake the other girls.

'What, I have to share a watch with _you_?'

'You sound disappointed.'

'You have no idea.'

He snorted and I followed him out of the tent, grabbing my dagger and a blanket as I left. I was instantly glad of the blanket; part of the tent's magic was that it was always warm in there, no matter the temperature outside, and with the sun still an hour off it was not much above freezing.

I was surprised to see that when I got outside, Percy hadn't got a weapon. In fact, I don't think I had ever seen him with the bronze sword he used, other then when he was fighting. Not wanting to seem stupid, I didn't mention it, but promised myself to keep my eyes open whenever he needed his sword. We climbed into the branches of a tree, high enough that could see all the camp and keep an eye out, but low enough we could jump straight down if needed.

I tried to ignore the fact that Percy was sitting so close to me, I could feel his body heat right next to me and smell the ocean in him. Instead I tried to focus on the edge of the clearing, looking for potential threats. _Focus Annabeth,_ I mentally scolded myself.

'Do you have any idea who could be trying to kill me?'

I was surprised I found myself asking that. I had been thinking about it, but I had no reason to believe Percy would have answers for me. I was surprised when he answered.

'I'm not sure. I have a guess, but that might just be because of personal reasons than because there is any evidence.'

'So are you going to tell me your guess?'

'No.'

'You're impossible.'

'It's been mentioned before.'

I worked hard at keeping the smirk off my face. It was dark, but we were sitting close enough that the moon gave enough light for him to see my expression. Percy gave me an annoying lopsided grin. I guess he could see I was trying to hide a smirk.

'So I know you mother is Athena, but what about your father? Do you see him at all?'

'Hang on, I asked you about your family this morning and you flew away. Why should you get an answer when I don't?'

'Because it's me.'

I sighed, but Percy was the kind of person you just wanted to tell things to. And anyway, maybe me sharing would convince him to tell me about his mother.

'I don't get on with my dad. He never wanted to look after me, thought I was the biggest inconvenience that had happened to him. He got a new, "normal" wife and "normal" kids. I ran away when I was seven, went to Athens, where my mother allowed me to live near the temple. I used to see her more, but now I only see her occasionally, when she comes from Olympus to meet her children.'

'And last time she did, seven of them were killed.'

'I guess that if you want to kill daughters of Athena, you have them all together in one room, nicely lined up.'

He smirked again. He was kind of handsome, with dark, messy hair and brilliant green eyes. Looking at him it felt like I was getting lost in his bright, sea green eyes... _focus Annabeth_ I mentally scolded myself. He was a son of Poseidon, the son of my mothers enemy. And anyway, he was really annoying.

I watched as the sun began to appear on the horizon, reds and yellows lighting up the sky above the camp.

'I'm sorry,' I whispered.

'About what?' The son of Poseidon asked.

'This morning, with the hydra. You wanted me to come up with a plan, and then it failed and Hazel got injured and Leo got exhausted and we all almost died and it was my fault because the plan didn't work.' I was speaking quickly as it all came pouring out, barely letting one word finish before the next one began.

'Calm down,' Percy laughed. 'There's a reason I never make plans, and that is because they never work. Your plan almost did, and you had barely known us for two hours. You didn't know what we could do, you didn't know that Leo isn't a fighter, or that Hazel is still learning the mist stuff, and yet you managed to create a plan that almost worked. That's a whole lot better then most of my team could ever manage. And anyway, you seem to be conveniently forgetting you singlehandedly killed the hydra in the end. I'd say that's pretty good going.'

I felt myself blush slightly from the compliment. It was only a small compliment though, barely even one, so why would I be so affected by it? I wanted to change the subject quickly. 'What do mean, Leo's not a fighter?'

Whether Percy didn't notice I had changed the subject or he decided to ignore it, he answered the question. 'We met Leo shortly after we decided to form a proper monster fighting team. He was a builder, and engineer. He has designed hundreds of amazing automatons and weapons and all sorts, he even helped Beckendorf repair the dragon, and was the one who gave it wings and named it Festus. He's also a great cook, one of the best excluding my mother.' He hesitated when he mentioned her, but coughed and carried on. 'And he cracks terrible jokes that, even if they don't make people laugh, they lighten the mood and give people a common interest of killing him, a particularly useful skill when people are arguing. Despite this his weapon of choice is a three pound hammer I don't think I've ever actually seen him use on a monster, and of course his fire which can make him really exhausted, really quickly as you saw. So yeah, not a fighter but still important. And you should see him when he has a few machines at his disposal.'

There wasn't really much I could say to that, so I remained silent and went back to watching the area for threats.

I noticed that Percy kept messing around, like he couldn't sit still. He began to fiddle with a pen from his pocket and would mess around with the branches of the tree, snapping twigs off and throwing them around. I guessed that like most demigods he was ADHD, so had trouble sitting still. He didn't seem very concerned about keeping watch either, I hadn't seen him look around once as though he was searching for threats.

'I notice you're not taking this keeping watch business very seriously.'

'I'm taking it as seriously as I need to.'

'You don't think anything is going to attack us?' I was surprised, I thought that as the leader of the monster hunters he would be more protective.

'What? Of course I do. But I'm not the only one on guard.'

'If you think that I'm going to keep watch on my own while you just mess around then you are severely mistaken-'

'I didn't mean you either.' Percy interrupted.

'Then who?'

'The horses.'

'The horse- you have got to be joking.'

'Why?' Percy looked confused. 'Before they were tamed by humans, horses were prey for wolves and monsters and stuff. They have great eyesight for movement.'

'Ok, so lets say for one minute that a hellhound is coming out of the bushes over there. How would the horses help?'

'Well, they would come up to me and say "There is a hellhound coming out of the bushes over there Lord." And then I would kill-'

'They would call you Lord?' I asked sceptically.

'Well, except Blackjack who calls me boss and Arion who I think has a problem for authority-'

'Of course,' I realised finally. 'Your the son of Poseidon who created horses, so you can speak to them.'

Percy looked surprised. 'It took you that long to figure it out? I thought you were supposed to be smart.'

'I just thought you were dumb enough that you thought horses would be able to help you without needing to be able to speak to you.'

'Well _Wise Girl_ , you thought wrong.'

'Not necessarily _;_ would you still try and use the horse _s_ even if they couldn't speak to you?'

Percy hesitated.

'Well there you go, _Seaweed Brain._ '

'You are so hard to argue with.'

'Yet you seem to manage anyway.'

He gave me another one of his lopsided grins, and I couldn't resist smiling slightly. He seemed to take this as a personal accomplishment and his smile grew even wider. I rolled my eyes, but I found myself kind of enjoying the company of this annoying son of Poseidon.

* * *

 **Wow, almost 3,000 words. So, there is my first attempt at Percabeth, what did you think? Good, bad? I'm not really a romance kind of person but I hope I did okay, there will be more in the future (obviously). Thank you so much to everyone who has favourited, reviewed or followed my story, or even to those people who are reading it and giving me another view, it means the world that people are actually reading and enjoying my story.**

 **~Salty**


	11. Discussions and not a lot else (sorry)

The next morning the tents were packed up surprisingly quickly, and people ate bread and fruit as they got ready. Maybe half an hour after everyone woke up people were mounting their horses and preparing to ride. I guessed that Percy's team did this a lot. I was surprised to see how much messing around was going on while still being able to pack up quickly. Nico, returned from his trip to the underworld, had summoned a couple skeletons which were, for some reason chasing Travis and Conner Stoll around the camp, however that might have had something to do with a small statue the brothers were passing back and forth between each other, which I remembered was from a game called mythomagic. Leo accidentally set fire to a tent, and Percy flicked his hand, sending a wave of water over the flames with little more than a glance in that direction. Michael Yew, a son of Apollo, had got into a shouting match with Albert, which was slightly amusing since Albert was tall with strong muscles, and Michael was about 4ft 6. I wasn't entirely sure what they were fighting about, but, from what I had seen from Michael, he had a lot of attitude and would argue about almost anything. I doubted it was anything serious.

But there we were, walking along. Honestly, I had begun to get nervous. All the mist dummies that hadn't been captured, disappeared yesterday morning. If people really were hunting me, they would know by now that we had slipped by them, and would now start looking for us. We had covered a long way in the first 48 hours, however, and could only hope it would be enough.

I found myself riding next to Thalia, who was deep in thought. This surprised me slightly, as Thalia wasn't normally one to consider things, usually she just acted on instinct.

'Well, I never thought I would see the day. Thalia actually thinks about something,' I teased her.

Thalia gave me a playful shove, giving me a small electric shock as she did so.

'So how is Jason?' I asked. Usually Thalia doesn't like talking about her family, but I guessed that she would make an exception for her brother.

'It's strange. I thought he was dead. I haven't heard anything about him for twelve years, and then he suddenly turns up. I keep trying to picture him as the little three year old I used to care for, now he's my age.'

'And the drawing?'

'It was done twelve years ago by one of my mother's friends, some artist. I completely forgot about it, but apparently Jason went home for the first time in a decade a couple of years ago, trying to find out about his family. He must of found it and some part of him remembered I'm his sister.'

'Percy mentioned he wouldn't tell anyone about his past.'

'Yeah, it's strange. He won't even tell me what happened to him after we got separated. All I know is that it had something to do with Hera.' She scowled at the ground, not having the best relationship with the goddess. I couldn't blame her, I wasn't keen on the Queen of the Heavens either.

'Percy also mentioned that as the son of Zeus he had a lot of contacts with Olympus. But you're the daughter of Zeus and you don't have anything like that.'

'You think he lied about where his contacts came from?' Thalia looked concerned at the back of Jason's head, who was riding at the front of the group.

'It's possible, though I can't see why he would, unless-'

'Look,' Thalia interrupted me. 'Whatever is going on with him, I can't think of him as untrustworthy. He's my brother.'

'Who you haven't seen in twelve years,' I retorted.

Thalia narrowed he eyes, giving me one of the terrifying glares that she was so good at. I couldn't help but think how different Jason and Thalia looked from each other - the same electric blue eyes, but otherwise completely different. No one would even imagine that they were related. Really I doubted that Jason was a spy, but even so, the circumstances seemed a little strange. What had he been doing for twelve years that he didn't want to tell anyone about?

'You sound like Piper,' she muttered.

'What do you mean?'

'Last night, she told me that Jason isn't really the brother I knew. He's changed, and I can't keep thinking otherwise.'

I didn't know what to say to that. I remembered Piper's payback for laughing at her, but hearing that it could have bad consequences. More than I think Piper realised.

Nothing attacked us, and we ended up riding almost twelve hours, barely stopping. I was personally glad that we had nothing to fight, but I could tell that most people were itching for something to do. Most demigods are ADHD which improves battle reflexes, but means we find it difficult to concentrate or sit still for a long time. Judging by the faces of some of our group, they would prefer a few monsters to hours of riding.

We were riding through woodland and plains to stay away from other people. I was surprised to see that the monster hunters knew it well; they had apparently tracked a pack of hell hounds around the area for two weeks straight after the creatures had torn apart a some local towns and villages.

Hearing the story, Piper shuddered. 'I've always hated the idea of hell hounds. The idea of massive dogs terrifies me,' she explained.

'Doesn't your dad have a dog?' I asked.

'Yeah, but that's a normal sized dog, not a massive one that tears apart small towns.'

'Not all hell hounds are bad,' Percy put in.

'You know one that isn't?' I asked, surprised.

'He's talking about his pet, Mrs O'Leary,' Nico explained.

'You have a pet hell hound called Mrs O'Leary?' Thalia looked shocked, an impressive feat for a child of Zeus.

'The name wasn't my idea,' Percy told us. 'I inherited her from her previous owner when he died. I now look after her.'

'Who in their right mind would try to tame a hell hound?' Malcom had moved round beside me, back from acting as a rear guard.

Percy shrugged. 'Quintus, apparently.'

His face showed that was enough on the subject, and we continued to ride with some of the monster hunters telling us stories about their time with the group.

* * *

The sun was low on the horizon when we finally stopped. We were in a large valley with steep sides, and before us, still many miles away but finally visible, the peaks of the mountains. Far off in the distance, I could see the tip of the highest mountain in Greece, still many miles away.

'We're almost there,' Thalia had followed my gaze far into the distance. 'That's Olympus, the home of the gods.'

* * *

 **Sorry for another short chapter, and the delay. Luckily all my exams have now finished and it is the weekend, so I am hoping to write a lot more. I just want to say thank you to anyone who has reviewed, I love to hear what you think, and also thank you to all those who have followed or favourited my story, it is an amazing feeling every time I look at my page and see another person who likes my story.**

 **Until next time,**

 **~Salty**


	12. Larissa hates Percy

For the second time we pitched tents, and prepared to spend another night outdoors. I was worried to see how little food we had left when we made dinner; there was barely enough for breakfast tomorrow, sixteen people get through a lot of food.

'We're going to have to get more food,' Piper said, noticing the problem at almost the same time as me. 'We won't make it to Olympus without more to eat.'

Albert sighed. 'There is only one place between here and Olympus that we won't make a scene as long as we enter in small groups.'

'Oh, and where's that?' Nico asked.

'Larissa,' Percy said, looking slightly annoyed.

'What's so bad about Larissa?' I asked, surprised at his reaction.

Percy shrugged. 'They don't like me.'

'You did blow up half of their city,' Frank pointed out.

'How did you manage that?' Thalia looked scarily interested at the prospect of blowing up cities.

'It wasn't me. Some L- lai- arg, I can never pronounce the word. Some giants were attacking them, and would have destroyed their entire city if it weren't for me. They blamed be anyway, because they couldn't take their anger out on dead things and I admit, I did kind of destroy half the city in the process.'

'He's talking about Laistrygonian Giants,' Hazel explained. 'And the people of Larissa weren't even mad at him for the destruction. Well- I mean- they were, but that was only because he led them there in the first place.'

'Wasn't me,' Percy argued, 'they were following Frank.'

'True,' Frank pointed out. 'They thought that if they ate the last of my bloodline they would develop my families shapeshifting abilities.'

'Would they?' Thalia asked.

Frank shrugged. 'I wasn't keen on letting them find out.'

'So your ability to change shape comes from your mothers side rather than because you're the son of Ares?' I asked.

Frank nodded. 'Poseidon,' he explained, 'gave the gift to one of his grandsons, and it was passed down through the family to me.'

'You're a descendent of Poseidon?' I was surprised that two major gods would have children within the same family.

'As interesting as Frank's family history is,' Malcom interrupted, 'we're getting off topic. The point is, can Percy go to Larissa without everyone trying to kill him?'

Percy hesitated and then nodded. 'Shouldn't be a problem- it was a few years ago, they probably won't remember me.'

'Well there we go then,' Malcom said. 'Tomorrow, it looks like we're going to Larissa.'

Honestly, as I laid down to go to sleep, I wasn't sure I shared Percy's confidence. A few years wouldn't change much, and destroying half a city was a pretty big thing. Tomorrow's trip to Larissa would, I imagined, be a lot more eventful than everyone seemed to be hoping.

* * *

We had decided to go into Larissa in separate groups of four, it would be less obvious then sixteen people going in together. I went in with Thalia, Jason and Leo, on the basis that someone would most likely be looking for me with any of my brothers or Piper. I pulled a piece of silk over my head to hide my blonde hair and the top half of my face. Piper assured me that head coverings were completely common in the north of Greece, so would be the easiest way to avoid suspicion. What surprised me the most was that Thalia was acting more distant to Jason today then she had yesterday, I hoped what I said and what she heard Piper say wouldn't affect her relationship with him.

Larissa was a beautiful city. I could have spent hours just admiring the architecture, but the fact I noticed half the buildings were almost new, reminded me that we didn't have all day, and it would be better to be in and out as fast as possible to avoid being recognised. I made sure that my headscarf was still safely hiding my hair and face, before walking quickly behind the others into the large bakery at the edge of the street. I kept my dagger hidden under my cloak in case of trouble, and I knew that the others had hidden weapons too. Thalia's bow was enchanted by Artemis, and would appear slung over her shoulder if she needed it. Leo's main weapons was his fire and a large, three pound hammer. He claimed it was in his tool belt, although I didn't know what to think about that. His tool belt looked empty. Jason also didn't have an obvious weapon, which really surprised me. From what I could tell he used either a sword or a javelin, but neither were there. They were huge though, they should have been visible.

The bakery had row after row of bread, cakes and pastries. Thalia, Jason and I each took a large loaf and placed it in a paper bag, while Leo admired the cakes. He was ADHD enough as it is, I didn't think he needed more sweet stuff in his system, but he stared longingly at a the rows of cakes. He tapped one, almost experimentally, and a wide grin spread across his face as he followed us outside.

'What was that?' I asked, as we became clear of the shop window.

'What was what?' He replied innocently.

'You know - touching that cake in the bakery.'

'Oh right.' He acted as though he really had no idea what I was talking about, but ruined it by laughing. 'As a skill as a child of Hephaestus, I can touch something and see what it contains. I'm not as accurate with food as I am with minerals and chemicals and stuff, but it is easy enough to get the recipe for, say, a delicious looking cake by touching it.'

'You just pirated a cake recipe,' Jason said, partly exasperated, partly impressed.

'Yeah, maybe.' Leo shrugged.

'So how are you supposed to bake this cake?' Thalia asked.

'His tool belt,' Jason explained.

'What?' I was surprised. His tool belt was empty.

Leo reached inside his empty tool belt, and brought out a small jar of honey. 'The belt can bring out anything I ask for. It isn't as good with food and stuff as it is with tools, but I can get the ingredients for a cake easy enough.'

'Hold on,' Thalia voiced my exact thoughts. 'Why are we here, risking detection by buying tonnes of food, when you can just magic it up out of your tool belt?'

Leo shook his head. 'You really think I'm that stupid? My tool belt can only summon a certain amount of food - for four, five people max. It takes it a while to recharge.'

I sighed and followed Thalia into another shop for some more supplies.

I could tell that Thalia and Jason were tense about an attack, they kept looking round, glancing hard at every person we passes. Tense didn't, however, seem to be in Leo's vocabulary. He was running around, joking and basically messing around all through the city, as well as fiddling with some random stuff from his tool belt, probably making something. His hands seemed to go into autopilot, he barely even glanced at what he was doing as he continued to joke. He had was just slipping whatever he had finished working on back into his tool belt for safe keeping, when Jason stopped walking, looking straight up. I wondered what was wrong. Following his gaze I saw, high above us, an large bird flying in some sort of pattern. 'What is that?' I asked.

'Frank,' he replied.

'How can you tell?' Thalia had noticed we weren't following anymore, and had come back to see what was going on.

'It's a Chinese Sparrowhawk, which is only found in Asia,' Leo explained. 'Frank must think it's serious, a Sparrowhawk is his distress call.' He took a small mirror from his tool belt, and proceeded to turn it towards and away from the sun. I realised that the light reflected off it, creating a pattern. Long, short, long.

'Does Frank understand morse code?' I asked, surprised.

'No,' Leo said. 'I'm sending him the message "nice pigeon". But he knows I know it, so knows we got the message, which is the main thing. He'll fly down and meet us in some out-of-the-way place... and there he goes. Damn. I only got to the letter g.'

Ignoring Leo, we ran to a small alleyway, where we had seen Frank land. It didn't seem to be the best system, but it worked. He was standing in the alley, back in human form, breathing hard.

'What happened?' I asked.

Frank hesitated. 'You... um... know how Percy said he wouldn't be recognised and that it would all be fine and everything...'

Jason sighed. 'He got recognised didn't he?'

The son of Ares nodded, talking so quickly he forgot to breath. 'I was buying some fruit at one of the stalls in the square, when one of the guards recognised him. He was hanging around by the fountain and this guard recognised him; she remembered him, I guess, from when he kind of destroyed the city and then Hazel and Nico tried to help him but this guard called in re-enforcements and they had them surrounded and I wanted to help but I couldn't do anything because they had swords pointing at them and they would hurt them and-'

'Jeez Frank,' Leo rolled his eyes. 'We get it, Hazel is in danger and you're worried about her but you need to breath; you're turning blue.'

Frank scowled at him.

'Do you know where they were headed?' I asked him.

He pointed west. 'I saw them walking that way when I was flying above, but other than that I don't know.'

Leo seemed to be concentrating, his eyes got a focused look about them, something I didn't realise they were capable of. 'Isn't there a palace or something to the west? I didn't think much about it at the time, I only remember it because Percy pulled down the entire east side of it two years ago.'

'He can do that?' Thalia asked surprised.

Frank nodded. 'He's one of the, probably the most powerful demigod alive. I doubt there is much he can't do if he puts his mind to it.'

'Except stop getting into trouble' Jason muttered next to me. I smirked, but I think I was the only one who heard him.

So we set off for the palace through the streets. Jason had suggested flying, however I was worried that it would be too obvious since we were about to stage a break out, and only two of us could fly anyway, and Thalia had loudly backed me up, having gone slightly pale at the thought.

It took us over half an hour to find the palace, despite it being the largest structure around. After Leo led us in circles for some time, having no idea "which big tree it was next to", Frank gave up and, turning into a crow, led us from the sky.

When we finally reached it, I was amazed by how beautiful the Palace was. It was still in the process of rebuilding - scaffolding held up most of the east side. Despite this, the architecture was incredible. I loved the way columns surrounded three sides of the courtyard, opening to a gravel path lined with flowers and trees. The white marble that made up most of the palace was decorated with colourful art, of the gods, flowers and scenes from the myths. I saw an image of Poseidon, holding his trident in one hand, rising the sea into a great wave. It looked fresh and recently repainted, as though it had been treated with respect. I wondered what Poseidon would do if he realised these people had arrested his son.

'Where are we going?' I asked quietly. 'Normally they hold prisoners up somewhere before they put them on trial.'

'One thing you learn when you spend time around with Percy is that _normally_ doesn't exist,' Leo explained. 'They've been waiting to lock him up for years, now they have their hands on him they aren't going to waste any more time.'

Getting over the wall into the palace was easy. Frank and Jason flew over - Frank as an giant eagle with Leo in his claws, and Jason hugging Thalia tightly, and Frank then came back for me. We got into the palace building in the same way, through a balcony on the third floor with an open door. We stole through the palace as quietly as we could, but we needn't have worried. We didn't see a single person during our trip through the palace, trying to find where they were holding the trial. It didn't take us long, luckily, before we found a balcony high up where we could overlook the court, without fear of being seen. In other words, it was the perfect viewing platform to watch our friends get sentenced for the destruction of half a city.

* * *

 **Well, chapter twelve. A dozen chapters, I almost can't believe it. Unfortunatly I will not be updating so much any more, as I have reached the end of the chapters I have already written and just need editing, and move onto writing chapters as I go. But please, keep reviewing and following, and I will update when I can.**

 **~Salty**


	13. I Want to Break Free

They brought Percy, Nico and Hazel in, a sword at each of their necks. I watched as three important looking men came forward, all with purple cloaks and expensive-looking gold jewellery. These were the people in charge, I could tell, who would be deciding Percy's fate.

'Before you start accusing me and my friends of whatever you want to accuse us of,' Percy began, not waiting for any of the men to speak, 'can I just say neither Nico nor Hazel had anything to do with that accident three years ago, and it would be better just to let them go.'

'I think not,' replied the man in the middle. 'Even if they did have nothing to do with your so called "accident", which I do not believe, today they turned weapons on the army of Larissa, attempting to evade capture by killing those that stood in their way- is something funny?' The man rounded on Nico who was snorting while he spoke.

'Oh, a couple of things,' Nico replied evenly. 'Firstly, your bizarre notion that thirty men is an army, and secondly that you think we actually attempted to kill anyone. Sure, we tried to get away, I mean getting arrested is inconvenient, but if we wanted to kill anyone, they would be dead.'

Thalia couldn't seem to help but snort as the men began to turn slightly purple at Nico's speech.

'Impertinence!' The man on the left shouted angrily. 'You, boy, should learn to respect your elders. Our army would be ten times the size if not for the fact you killed them all three years ago.'

'As Percy said,' Hazel put in, 'I wasn't here three years ago. But I heard that it wasn't Percy who killed your soldiers, but Laistrygonian giants, which he then killed. So surely you should be thanking him for killing them and saving your city, not punishing him for the deaths he did not cause.'

'The Laistrygonian giants,' the man on the right snapped, 'were only here because this boy brought them here. And not only that, but after the giants were dead he continued to tear apart much of the city with his hurricanes, in doing so taking many innocent lives. I say he is a conspirator against our great city of Larissa, and should face the punishment of Hades in the underworld!'

'Hurricanes,' Thalia mouthed silently next to me, looking as impressed as I felt, but I saw a pained expression on Percy's face, as though he was reliving bad memories.

'Quiet Marius,' the man in the centre said sharply. 'Jackson is a son of Poseidon, and we cannot disrespect Poseidon with the death of his son. We will not kill them, however I see no reason they should not face just punishment up here. Lock them in the dungeons, and we will decide how best to punish them for their crimes against our glorious city.'

'Hold it, hold it.' Percy said. As he spoke the sword at his neck dug in deeper, sending a trickle of blood down his neck, although he didn't flinch, or give any sign he noticed. 'Firstly, the giants had nothing to do with me, they were following a friend and we didn't realise this until after we reached your city. I didn't destroy anywhere near as much of the city as you're suggesting. In fact, most of it was the giants, I reckon I only brought down the palace and wrecked a few houses. And in return I stopped your entire city from being destroyed. Can we just call it quits and go about our business?'

I realised quickly that Percy was most certainly not helping things, by suggesting calling it even, after admitting a friend led the giants here, he probably just infuriated the men even more, even if he was right. I imagined he had a habit of doing that.

The man in the centre, who was obviously in charge, had obviously had enough. He looked at one of the guards and nodded, and the guard slammed the hilt of his sword into Percy's head as hard as possible. He collapsed, unconscious, and was dragged away. Nico and Hazel were pushed after him at sword point.

'Well, that went well,' Leo said, as they disappeared from view down a corridor. 'He lasted almost three minutes that time, before they got too annoyed at him and shut him up. I would say that's a new personal best.'

'It's more than you would ever manage,' Thalia muttered.

'So does this kind of thing happen often then?' I asked.

Jason sighed. 'More than we would like. I mean, it's not normally an entire city, but Percy has a habit of making dangerous enemies. He will often say the wrong thing at the wrong time. You will not believe the number of times we have had to get him out of situations with people he's got on the wrong side of.'

'Isn't he powerful? Couldn't he get out of those situations himself?' I wanted to know.

Jason just smirked. 'Sure, he's powerful. That's the problem. He's so worried about killing whoever's caught him that he barely cares about the fact they are about to kill him. Monsters and immortals are the only people he never worries about fighting and killing, and even then things can go wrong. This city is a prime example.'

'That's all interesting and all, but shouldn't we be working on trying to find where they took Percy, Nico, and Hazel?' Thalia asked.

'Frank's on it,' Jason said, which made me realise for the first time that the son of Ares was missing. 'After Nico, he's our best spy. That shape-changing ability of his really is useful.'

I smirked and turned back to the edge of the balcony, watching the door they had been taken through in time to see a small bat fly out. It landed on the balcony and changed back into the muscular shape of Frank Zhang.

'They're not far,' he explained. 'Down a flight of stairs into a sort of basement or dungeon.'

'How many guards?' Jason asked.

'One,' Frank said. 'But... it's a woman.'

I realised the problem instantly, and it looked like Thalia and Jason had too. Leo, on the other hand, was oblivious.

'I get it, Frank is a manly guy who thinks hitting woman is wrong, but we have two lethal women here who will be totally alright with snatching the keys off her unconscious body and freeing our friends.'

'Firstly, Valdez,' Frank said, scowling. 'I have nothing against fighting anyone, man or woman, to free our friends. The problem is-'

'We don't know if we'll be able to,' finished Jason.

'Look,' Thalia explained. 'There are different rules in all the different city-states of Greece regarding women. It's terrible, most of my hunters join because of it. In places like Athens, women have no rights, are expected to sit quietly and look after the home, and the only rare exceptions are demigods. Horrific place, no offence,' she said, glancing at me. 'That always amuses me, given their patron is the goddess of warfare. Anyway, in other places like Sparta, women are seen pretty much equal to men, in war and most other things.

'But in a lot of places, including Larissa, there is a pretence of equality that hides a lot of misogyny. Woman are allowed to vote, but are ridiculed if they do. And women are allowed to train as soldiers or guards, but if the men find any reason why the woman should be kicked out of training or the actual job, they will be. Female soldiers aren't just good, or even amazing. They are literally perfect, faultless.

'One of my hunters was from here, training to be a guard, but was kicked off training because of some rigged training exercise. They are some of the most misogynistic bastards in the country. Give them any reason to get rid of you and you're out. '

'We don't have a choice,' I pointed out. 'We need to get Percy, Nico and Hazel back. There's five of us, and one of her. No one can be that good.'

Frank didn't look convinced, but nodded. 'Alright, we need to get down there,' he said, pointing to the floor far below us.

'Easy,' Thalia said, and with unnatural grace vaulted the barrier of the balcony and landed, rolling, fifteen feet below in the now empty room.

Jason shrugged, then nodded at Leo and I to climb onto the barrier. We did, and he pulled us off with him, using the air to slowly glide us onto the ground. Frank quickly joined us, having flown down in the form of a crow, and led us through the door.

Almost immediately we had to duck back as the rest of the guards came towards us. 'Damn girl, got me right in the chest,' one was saying as they disappeared around a corridor to the right.

Jason smirked. 'Good to know Hazel was giving them their money's worth.' He said, once the guards were out of earshot.

'Let's hope that they didn't hurt her too much because of it,' Thalia muttered.

As we carried on, I noticed something shining on the ground in the torch light. I reached down, to hear both Frank and Leo shout 'No!' I looked at the tiny gem, a ruby that my hand was millimetres from.

'They may be cursed,' Frank explained.

'Hazel?' I asked.

Frank nodded. 'She left a trail to show us the way to go,' he explained.

' _May_ be cursed?' Thalia repeated.

'Long story,' Leo said, 'that no one knows except Hazel and possibly Nico. As far as we know, you touch a gem Hazel has summoned and you might die a horrifically painful death shortly after.'

Frank nodded in agreement. 'She hasn't let anyone try since she has learnt to control her powers, so it may or may not still work; maybe the control also allows her to control the curse? Either way, she doesn't let anyone try.'

He led us forward, down a long, straight corridor, and then left down a set of stairs. We were maybe ten steps from the bottom when Frank stopped, and his bag morphed into a bow, slung across his shoulders. I realised that meant at the bottom of the stairs was the dungeon, and the guard. I pulled out my dagger and watched as Thalia adjusted her hunting knives on her belt and unslung her own bow from where it appeared on her back, nocking an arrow but not drawing it. I looked back to see Jason holding a gold sword, that had come from somewhere. Leo brought a three pound hammer out of his magic tool belt.

We stepped down the last few steps into a large, circular room with a low ceiling, surrounded by metal doors. And right in front of us was a girl. She couldn't have been older than me, with long, dark hair braided behind her back and hard eyes. Her gold sword held in front of her, and she was ready and alert. Two metal dogs with sharp teeth like miniature spearheads and ruby stood ready by her side; one pure silver, the other gold.

'These are your friends?' She asked, and although she was looking straight at us, I was sure she wasn't talking to us.

'Of course,' suddenly Hazel was there, standing right next to her like she had been there the entire time, which, knowing her, she probably had. 'I told you they would come.'

'Indeed,' agreed the girl, lowering but not sheathing her sword.

'But... how...' Frank stuttered. 'Hazel? What is going on?'

Hazel just smiled, and instead it was the guard who spoke. 'Your friend has convinced me that maybe I should consider helping you, and I have to admit I agree.'

'But how did you get out of the cell?' Jason asked Hazel. 'Did you let her out?' He said, turning to the girl.

This time it was Hazel that spoke. 'No,' she said. 'You aren't the only one with powers. A gold bar to stop the door fully closing, a little work with the mist and they seem to think that I am fully secured.'

Thalia smirked. 'This is why they need women working for them.'

The guard gave a thin smile, which, in the minute I had known her, was the first expression I had seen. 'Your friend here explained a little about herself,' she said, 'and I see you are not the enemy here. I will help you free your friends and leave this city, on one condition.'

'What's that?' Jason asked.

'You take me with you. I am done with Larissa, and everyone here. I wish to see the world.'

'Deal,' said Jason. 'Just one question, what's your name?'

The girl had pulled the keys off her belt and was moving towards moving towards a door, but turned back to glance at Jason. 'It's Reyna,' she said. 'Pleasure to meet you.'

* * *

 **I AM SO SORRY. :( :( :( I kept meaning to update this story, and then school got in the way, and I got a bad case of writers block and I completely lost all enthusiasm. But I am back! And I introduced Reyna! I think that Reyna is an amazing character, and I know that this wasn't exactly the most interesting of chapters, since there was no violence, or really any action of any kind, but now I have introduced Reyna I hope that there can be some more action in the next chapter. I think that for this story at least I am going to keep it with Annabeth's PoV, but if I do get my act together enough to write a sequel (no promises) I will definitely go into different PoV's. So thank you so much for being patient, but now I have the Easter holidays coming up, hopefully I can get back into writing more. So tell me what you think, and hopefully I will post soon.**


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